Blessed Maria Gargani

Maria Gargani, religious name Maria Crocifissa del Divino Amore, (23 December 1892 - 23 May 1973), was an Italian member of the Secular Franciscan Order and the founder of the Sisters Apostles of the Sacred Heart. Gargani was involved with Catholic Action during her teaching career but is best known for having been a close friend and correspondent with Pio from Pietrelcina from World War I until the saint's death in 1968; the saint wrote a total of 67 letters to Gargani during this period. The cause for her beatification opened in 1988 and she became titled as a Servant of God. Pope Francis named her as venerable in mid-2017 and later approved a miracle attributed to her in 2018 which confirmed she would be beatified. The beatification took place in Naples in the metropolitan cathedral on 2 June 2018. Maria Gargani was born in the evening on 23 December 1892 in Morra de Sanctis as the last of eight children to Rocco Gargani and Angiolina De Paola. Her devout father instructed the children in catechism and it was from him that Gargani's faith grew over time. Her education was spent in her hometown before finishing it in Avellino where she was the guest of an uncle; she obtained a master's degree in 1913 that would allow her to begin work as a teacher. Gargani began teaching in San Marco la Catola in Foggia from 1913 to 1928 and lived there alongside her married sister Antonietta. It was also there that she first met the priests Benedetto and Agostino Daniele who both became spiritual guides for her as she discerned her vocation. It was in 1914 that this manifested and she recorded that she wept as she discerned her call to follow God due to the seriousness of the task. Gargani later entered the Secular Franciscan Order after having discovered Francis of Assisi. Francis represented to her a model of love that served as an influence on her religious convictions.