Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu

Maria Sagheddu (17 March 1914 – 23 April 1939) - in religious Maria Gabriella - was an Italian Catholic professed religious and a professed member from the Trappists. Sagheddu had an intense spiritual devotion to ecumenism - something for which she had offered her life - since she desired that all would become one in Jesus Christ. Her childhood saw her noted as stubborn and obstinate though her increased activeness in teaching catechism and joining Azione Cattolica saw those qualities melt and become gentleness and careful attentiveness. Sagheddu was beatified in Rome in 1983. Maria Sagheddu was born to shepherds in Dorgali on 17 March 1914 as the fifth of eight children to Marcantonio Sagheddu and Caterina Cucca. Her father and one brother died in 1919 as did two other brothers sometime in their childhood. Sagheddu was said to be obstinate as a child but was also known to be obedient; she was also described as being prone to laziness on occasion. Once she concluded her initial education as a child she had to leave school to help out at home where she showed herself serious and endowed with a great sense of care and dutiful obedience. Yet she was often quick to criticize what she disliked and quick to ask for what she wanted. Sagheddu was ranked among the best at her school where she was alert and intelligent; she excelled in arithmetic most of all her other subjects. The death of her little sister Giovanna Antonia (whom she was closest to and was born in 1915) in 1932 prompted her to deepen her faith and she decided to enroll in Azione Cattolica not long after this. It was there that she began to instruct the local children and adolescents in the faith and also to help the aged of the region. In the process she began to augment her spiritual and contemplative life; she at first taught catechism with a stick in hand. But the local priest took the stick from her on one occasion and replaced it with a note that said: "Arm yourself with patience, not a stick".