Blessed Colomba Gabriel

Colomba Matylda Gabriel (3 May 1858 - 24 September 1926) - religious name Janina - was a Ukrainian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Benedictine Sisters of Charity. Gabriel studied under the Order of Saint Benedict in Lviv and later became a Benedictine herself while dedicating herself to teaching at her old school before she was forced to relocate to Rome in 1900 where she founded her order and joined a Benedictine branch there. Gabriel's beatification process opened in 1983 and she was titled as Venerable in 1990. Her beatification was celebrated in mid-1993. Colomba Matylda Gabriel was born in 1858 to nobles. In 1869 she started her education in Lviv under the Order of Saint Benedict at a school attached to their convent and she earned a diploma in teaching; she remained at her old school as a teacher. In 1882 she entered the Benedictines and assumed the religious name of "Janina". Her novitiate started on 30 August 1874 and she later made her solemn profession on 6 August 1882; she was appointed as prioress in 1889 and made novice mistress in 1894. She was later appointed as abbess of her house in 1897. Her spiritual director was the Dominican Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier. In 1900 she was forced to relocate to Rome and received permission on 3 June 1902 to enter the Benedictine branch at Subiaco. She arrived in Rome in 1900 and then went to Subiaco in 1902 to enter the branch before returning to Rome in 1903 for her apostolate. Father Vincenzo Ceresi (1869-1958) suggested she found an order and she founded the Benedictine Sisters of Charity with the opening of its first house on 25 April 1908; it received diocesan approval on 5 March 1926 from the Cardinal Vicar of Rome Basilio Pompili. Pope Pius X and Pope Benedict XV held her order in esteem as did the Italian queen Elena of Montenegro. Gabriel died in 1926; her order - in 2005 - had 121 religious in 18 houses in places like Romania and Madagascar.