Blessed Giuseppina Gabriela Bonino

Giuseppina Gabriela Bonino (5 September 1843 – 8 February 1906), also known by her religious name Giuseppina Gabriella of Jesus, was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Suore della Sacra Famiglia di Savigliano. Bonino dedicated her life to the ill and to orphans and did this in drawing upon her own experience in tending to her ailing father and to orphans in her hometown - all this prior to and after the establishment of her religious congregation. Her beatification was celebrated in mid-1995 in Saint Peter's Square. The cause started in 1964 under Pope Paul VI - she was titled a Servant of God - while Pope John Paul II titled her later as Venerable in 1994. Giuseppina Gabriella Bonino was born in Como on 5 September 1843 as the sole child to Domenico Bonino and Giuseppina Ricci. She was baptized on 6 September in the names of "Anna Maria Maddalena Giuseppina". She made her First Communion in 1850 and received her confirmation in 1851. Bonino moved to Turin in 1855 and made a private vow to remain chaste - with the permission of her spiritual director - in 1861. The Sisters of Saint Joseph of Turin managed her education when she was in high school. Bonino returned - in 1869 - to Savigliano to care for her ailing father and remained in her hometown until he died on 16 January 1874. Bonino underwent a successful operation for her back in 1876 (she was struck with a spinal tumor on 21 May 1876) and made a pilgrimage to Lourdes in France in September 1877 to give thanks to the Madonna for her good health; it was there she felt called to dedicate her life to others. Her mother died in late 1877 not long after Bonino's pilgrimage. She returned to Savigliano to tend to orphans and became active in the affairs of her local parish of San Pietro. In April 1881 she founded a religious order dedicated to the poor and ill as well as to orphans - she was made superior for her entire life.