Saints for Our Times: Two saintly women devoted to service
Catholic Spirit, June 2010, Good News
By Mary Lou Gibson
Columnist
Paula Frassinetti and Juliana Falconieri are two Italian women who saw a need for service in their community and acted upon that need. Although they may not be the most popular saints in the church’s calendar, they are honored and remembered as heads of religious communities. St. Paula founded the Sisters of St. Dorothy (the Dorotheans) and St. Juliana led the Servite tertiaries (also known as Mantellate). These women were not well educated, but they were kind-hearted and compassionate and were an inspiration to many others who joined them in their work.
Paula was born in Genoa, Italy in 1809. She was the only daughter of John and Angela Frassinetti. She had four brothers, all of whom became priests. Her mother died when Paula was nine and an aunt came to help the family but she died after just a few years. It became Paula’s job then to manage the household.
Matthew Bunson writes in “John Paul II’s Book of Saints” that Paula was a soul trained by tragedy and need early in her life. For the next several years, Paula started each day with Mass and then worked on the household chores. She became ill with bronchial problems when she was 20 and her father sent her to live with her brother, Joseph, whose parish was in Quinto near the sea.
It was here that she had an opportunity to be involved in parish affairs. Editor Michael Walsh reports in “Butler’s Lives of the Saints” that she became especially interested in the education of the poor children in the parish. She had the idea to create an institute to instruct these children and it was formally established on Aug. 12, 1834 in the Genovese parish of St. Clare.
According to Walsh, she called her institute the Daughters of the Holy Faith, but changed the name to the Sisters of St. Dorothy in 1838 after she met Don Passi. He had previously founded a group doing the same work named after St. Dorothy. The sisters opened a small school at St. Teodoro Parish.
Paula advised members of the congregation to be visible guardian angels to the children. Author Sarah Gallick writes in “The Big Book of Women Saints” that Paula was especially sensitive to disfigured children, whom she called “pictures of God without a frame.”
Her sisters served the community during the 1835 cholera epidemic in northern Italy. They showed remarkable spirit and fortitude again in 1848 when chaos overtook Rome. Pope Pius IX’s prime minister had been stabbed to death and the pope was forced to flee the city. Gallick reports that Paula and her companions refused to leave. She gathered her sisters and urged them to pray to St. Joseph, guardian of the holy family.
Paula was active in her community until she suffered a stroke in 1876. Subsequent strokes in 1877 and 1882 further weakened her. During her last attack, John Bosco came to visit her, according to Bunson, and commended her for her virtues and announced her coming death. She died on June 11, 1882 and her remains are at St. Onofrio, the Dorothean motherhouse in Rome.
At her canonization on March 11, 1984, Pope John Paul II called her “a splendid fruit of the redemption always active within the church.”
The Dorotheans are active in Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa and Asia. In the U.S., the sisters operate schools in Staten Island, N.Y.; Warren, R.I.; Taunton, Mass.; and Mission.
Juliana’s birth was a miracle to her parents. Sarah Gallick writes her parents were long past hoping for a child when she was born. In gratitude, they built the Church of the Annunciation in Florence.
Her uncle Alexis became her spiritual director. Years earlier, he and six others founded the Servants of Mary (Servites), which was followed by a cloistered Second Order for women. Juliana was very devoted to prayer and at a young age renounced the world and consecrated her life to God through service as a Servite tertiary.
Gallick writes that she became a tertiary because she preferred a more active apostolate. She continued to live at home until her mother died. She then she lived in community with a number of women who devoted themselves to prayer and works of mercy.
Walsh reports that Juliana and the women who worked with her were nicknamed “Mantellate” because they wore short sleeves that freed their hands for work. This name came to be used later for women tertiaries in general. When she became superior, she drew up a code of regulations; it was formally confirmed 120 years later for tertiaries by Pope Martin V.
Juliana got all her strength from the Blessed Sacrament, but over time, this became her greatest sadness. Woodeene Koenig-Bricker writes in “365 Saints” that because of her severe mortifications, she suffered debilitating health problems and was unable to eat and digest food. In her final hours, she was too weak to swallow and could not receive the Eucharist. One of the priests attending her put the host on her chest so she could look at it. As she breathed her last, the host vanished. Walsh reports that when they were preparing her body for burial, it was discovered the host had left an imprint on her chest.
She was canonized in 1737 by Pope Clement XII. She is usually represented in the habit of her order with a host upon her breast.