Venerable Franziska Streitel

Franziska Streitel (born Amalia Streitel, religious name Maria Franziska of the Cross, 24 November 1844 – 6 March 1911) was a German religious sister in the Roman Catholic Church. Streitel founded the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother. In 2010 she was proclaimed to be venerable after the recognition of her life of heroic virtue. Streitel was born in Mellrichstadt, on 24 November 1844, the eldest of four children to Adam and Franziska Horhammer Streitel. At an early age, she became skillful in needlework. After her elementary education, Amalia was sent to the Franciscan institute of Maria Stern in Augsburg. There she earned a diploma in French and music. Streitel was trained to be a teacher, but at the age of seventeen, felt drawn to religious life. Her parents opposed her vocation but relented when she reached the age of 21. In September 1866, she returned to the Franciscan Institute in Augsburg. On her investiture as a novice in June 1867, she got the name Mary Angela. In 1868, she began teaching, French, music, and needlework to students at a convent in Munich. From 1872 until 1880 she directed an orphanage. Drawn to a life of contemplation and solitude, she went, with the consent of her local bishop to the Carmelite convent of Himmelspforten in Würzburg, but left the very same year, due to "a divine inspiration" and returned to her parents house. According to the wishes of her confessor, she relocated to Rome in 1883, in order to work with Francis Mary of the Cross Jordan and the congrega†ion that he had established. Together they founded another community, the Society of the Divine Saviour. Only twelve days after her arrival in Rome, Sr. Maria Angela took vows and the new religious name Maria Franziska of the Cross. The rule she drew up were marked by great severity concerning evangelical poverty and austerity of life.