Blessed Anna Maria Taigi
Feast day: June 9
Blessed Anna Maria Taigi was an Italian married woman and a Third Order Trinitarian born in 1769. She lived during a politically tumultuous time, and she had the gift of prophecy and the ability to read the state of grace in souls. Yet she was beatified in 1920 primarily for her virtuous life as a wife and mother despite her difficult marriage.
Hardship began early for Blessed Anna Maria. When she was six years old, her parents moved the family from Siena to Rome due to financial problems. Although she was able to have a Catholic education, Anna Maria worked several jobs, including as a maid, to help her parents financially. From these hard experiences, Blessed Anna Maria became strong.
But it was her marriage to a coarse and temperamental man that convinced Blessed Anna Maria take her faith seriously and strive to grow in virtue. During her 49 years of married life, she taught herself to practice patience and charity in dealing with her husband and their seven children. She managed the family’s limited finances, as well as her husband’s ill temper when he was unemployed. She took seriously the significance of the marital bond. It was her spiritual leadership within her family that kept them together.
Her marriage was also tried by the loss of three of her children in childhood. Still, with her goal of loving God and his will above all personal considerations, she focused on the welfare of her four remaining children, ensuring that they were well educated and, more importantly, that they knew their Catholic faith. Her family regularly prayed together in a small private chapel. Their day began with morning prayer and the Mass and ended with reading the lives of the saints and praying the Rosary. Blessed Anna Maria also gave generously to the poor from what little she had and visited the sick in several hospitals. She helped battered wives and even cared for stray cats.
Blessed Anna Maria made such profound progress spiritually by choosing to meet regularly with and follow the advice of a spiritual director, a Servite priest. She had a great devotion to the Eucharist, the Trinity, the Infant Jesus, the Passion of Christ and the Blessed Mother. She is known to have converted many to the faith and felt called to expiate the sins of the world through extraordinary penances. Blessed Anna Maria was so well known for her advice that famous people started coming to her for spiritual direction, including Napoleon’s mother, Letizia Bonaparte. Blessed Anna Maria belonged to a confraternity which met every Friday to pray the Stations of the Cross.
Blessed Anna Maria’s husband, Domenico, later said of her:
“With her wonderful tact she was able to maintain a heavenly peace in our home. For example, when my son Camillus was living with us early in his marriage, my daughter-in-law was a disturbing element. She always wanted to play the mistress of the house. But my wife knew how to keep everyone in his place and she did it with a graciousness that I can’t describe.
“I often came home tired, moody and cross, but she always succeeded in soothing and cheering me. And due to her, I corrected some of my faults. But if I were a young man and could search the whole world to find such a wife, it would be vain. I believe that God has received her into heaven because of her great virtue.”
During her lifetime, Blessed Anna Maria suffered much spiritually and was even calumniated at times. After seven months of sickness and spiritual trials, she died in 1837. Her body now lies in the Basilica di San Crisogono in Rome. Blessed Anna Maria Taigi was beatified in 1920 as an example of how an ordinary mother can become a saint and help others spiritually.
Reflection
Dear Lord, give me the grace to grow in holiness right where I am, and may I share all you have given me with those around me.
Prayer
O God, the exaltation of the lowly,
who willed that blessed Anna Maria should excel
in the beauty of her charity and patience,
grant, through her merits and intercession,
that, carrying our cross each day,
we may always persevere in love for you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
