Blessed Irene Stefani

Irene Stefani, IMC (born Aurelia Mercede Stefani; 22 August 1891 – 31 October 1930) was an Italian religious sister of the Consolata Missionaries. She assumed the religious name Irene upon her investiture and was sent to the mission in Kenya, where she died in 1930 of bubonic plague. She was beatified in 2015 by Cardinal Polycarp Pengo on behalf of Pope Francis. Stefani was born in 1891 in the small village of Anfo as one of twelve children and was baptized as Aurelia Jacoba Mercede on the following day, 23 August. She received Confirmation on 6 November 1898 and later received her First Communion a few years following this. Her mother died on 12 May 1907 and this left Stefani in the delicate position of the management of her siblings and assisting her father, especially in the Christian formation of her younger sisters Marietta and Antonietta, and her brother Ugo who died not long after this. Stefani joined the Consolata Missionaries in Turin in June 1911 and made her first vows on 29 January 1914, prior to the beginning of World War I. That same year, she was sent to go to Kenya, leaving on 28 December 1914, where she arrived in January 1915 in Mombasa. She served as a nurse in Kenya and became well known and well regarded among the people that she served. This earned her the nickname "Nyaatha" (Nyina wa tha) ("mother of mercy"). With the onslaught of World War I, Stefani served in hospitals to tend to the wounded soldiers and those others wounded in the conflict. On 20 August 1916, she was appointed to assist the carriers who were forced to march exhaustingly in the African terrain. During this time, she worked as a Red Cross nurse in military hospitals in places such as Lindi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Kenya. She had zeal for the salvation of souls and baptised 3000 in articulo mortis.