Saint Luigi Guanella said this about his sister Caterina, who died on June 13, 1891. He had a biography written and promoted it. the Beatification Process
by Don Gabriele Cantaluppi
"So you'll be a priest?" was the joyful exclamation with which Caterina greeted the news that her twelve-year-old brother Luigi had obtained a free place at the Gallio College in Como. He would thus embark on the path to the priesthood, overcoming the grave difficulty that the seminary fees posed for the Guanella family.
Caterina was the eighth in Lorenzo Guanella and Maria Bianchi's large family of thirteen children. She was born in Fraciscio, a hamlet of Campodolcino in the Valchiavenna valley, on March 25, 1841, and was baptized the following day, where she received the names Maria, Caterina, and Anna. She spent her childhood at home, never fully accepted by her father, who, after five daughters, would have preferred a son who, according to the mentality of the time, would ensure the continuity of the family and be able to help more effectively in the Alpine agriculture.
Between the ages of seven and fifteen, Caterina attended elementary school taught by the chaplains of Fraciscio: state schools had recently been introduced, and due to the shortage of teachers, teaching was often entrusted to priests. Then, until the age of twenty-seven, she devoted herself to domestic chores and agricultural activities.
She was deeply attached to Luigi, who was one year younger than her, and shared his dreams and plans for good. During childhood games, moved by compassion for the many poor people in the village of Fraciscio, they mixed mud and water to make a "soup" and divided it into portions, intending to prepare it for the poor; this would later become her brother's mission.
On May 26, 1866, Luigi was ordained a priest and Caterina followed him as housekeeper and collaborator in pastoral and charitable initiatives, first in Prosto for a year, and subsequently in the Alpine village of Savogno, where her brother remained as parish priest for almost eight years.
Don Luigi had earned a teaching diploma and was assigned by the municipal administration to teach elementary school. He entrusted the girls' education to her, who had only a basic education, but was intelligent and performed her work with precision. She was able to instill in her students not only notions of home economics, but also examples of virtue through her own behavior.
In addition to teaching, she supported her brother in his tireless parish ministry, sustaining him with prayer and sacrifice. She provided catechism and cared for the elderly and the infirm; her parishioners considered her an "angel of good example" and a "young woman of great virtue." She rushed to the aid of mothers who, forced to work tirelessly in the fields, did not even have time to mend their children's clothes. Her charity toward the sick was immense, and she devoted herself day and night to their care: she prepared them for the Sacraments and assisted them in their dying days.
Perhaps in Savogno between the two fra-
there were not always relationships
idyllic, also due to their different personalities. In 1910, on the occasion of Caterina's beatification process, Don Luigi recalled: "During the years she lived with me, she found it very difficult to bend her will to my desires and undertakings. I had the habit of never resting, and of never allowing anyone else to rest, when I had set my mind on a work of worship, zeal, or charity of any kind. My character was more that of Martha than Mary, while she was the complete opposite. Yet she resigned herself and did what I wanted."
After her brother's decision to go to Don Bosco in Turin in 1875, Caterina returned to Fraciscio to care for her ailing mother, widowed the previous year and who would die on September 18, 1879. Don Lorenzo Sterlocchi, the parish priest of Campodolcino, who would later write her biography, supporting the desire of a group of young women led by Caterina, established the "Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary" in the parish on March 25, 1877, reserving for himself the role of spiritual director but appointing her as director, despite her reluctance. She was a spiritual teacher, a wise and enlightened counselor for her companions and, according to Don Guanella, "she seemed to enjoy the privilege of intuition."
"action of hearts."
In the final years of her life, she cultivated the desire to found a small institute for single women who, having taken a vow of virginity, could live together and dedicate themselves to charitable work among the poor. But illness and her subsequent death on June 13, 1891, prevented her from realizing this project.
The fame of her virtues spread throughout the world and her brother Don Luigi did not hesitate to define her as the “inspirer and cooperator” of his work, declaring that he himself, “being in continuous and serious difficulties”, had experienced her “special comfort and almost tangible cooperation of faith and charity”.
It was Cardinal Domenico Ferrata, prefect of the Congregation of Rites (now the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints), who promoted her cause for beatification after reading her biography, and Don Guanella's initial hesitation was overcome thanks to the encouragement of Pope Pius X. The diocesan curia of Como, under Bishop Alfonso Archi, established the ecclesiastical tribunal, although due to procedural errors, the cause suffered delays in the canonical investigations. Don Luigi Guanella, increasingly busy with countless efforts to support his institutions, was unable to closely follow the process, which stalled. Despite this, Caterina Guanella continues to be a model of holiness, as a witness to love for Christ, the poor, and the suffering.