Blessed Maria Anna Sala

Maria Anna Sala (21 April 1829 – 24 November 1891) was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious who was a member of the Sisters of Saint Marcellina. She served throughout her life as an educator across the northern Italian cities and carried out her work in the name of God. Sala continued to serve as a teacher even when it became known in 1883 that she had contracted throat cancer though the progression of the illness made her duties far more difficult to perform. She died of the disease almost a decade after contracting it. Her beatification was celebrated on 26 October 1980. Maria Anna Sala was born in Brivio on 21 April 1829 as the fifth of eight children to Giovanni and Giovannina Sala; two of her siblings were Genoveffa and Lucia. Sala was baptized mere hours after she was born. Her education was overseen at home until such time when she could attend an actual school. She commenced her formal studies at the age of eleven in Vimercate in a school that the Sisters of Saint Marcellina managed - an order that Luigi Biraghi had established. She was the top of class throughout her entire time there. Following the completion of her studies she received a teaching certification on 16 November 1846. It was at this point that she perceived the call of Jesus Christ to be part of the religious life and she decided to join the Sisters of Saint Marcellina who had educated her. However a cousin came to her and took her back home in order to aid her ailing mother. Despite this setback she was resolved to aid her mother and then realize her vocation and spent time in teaching catechism to children. one occasion her father protested when she gave alms to a poor man: "Right now we need to think of ourselves!" Sala responded: "God will think of us". While being at home she and one of her sister's liked to visit the Oratory of Saint Leonard.