Blessed Maria Pia Mastena

Blessed Maria Pia Mastena (7 December 1881 - 28 June 1951) - born Teresa Maria - was an Italian religious sister in the Roman Catholic Church. She was the founder of the Religious Sisters of the Holy Face. Mastena fostered a deep devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus and tried to promote that devotion to others in her religious career as a nun. Mastena first desired the contemplative life, but she was denied this after she entered the convent, since it was not a cloister. Instead, she dedicated herself to teaching in several Italian cities after leaving another convent and another religious order when she deemed contemplative life was not what God wanted for her. Her labors were dedicated instead to consolidating a new religious congregation, which began to grow after World War II until Mastena's sudden death in 1951. Mastena was beatified on 13 November 2005. Teresa Maria Mastena was born in Bovolone on 7 December 1881 as the first of five children to Giulio Mastena and Maria Antonia Casarotti. Her father worked as a small businessman and grocer, and her mother served as a teacher. Her baptism was celebrated in the local parish church on 29 December 1881. Mastena received her First Communion on 19 March 1891 and made a private vow to remain chaste in devotion to God. Her Confirmation was made on 27 August 1891. Mastena began her schooling at home, where her mother taught her, before she attended a kindergarten that the Sisters of Mercy managed. In her adolescence, she was active in parish activities and acted as a catechist for the children. It was in 1891 that she reported her first experience centered on a devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. Mastena later asked to enter the religious life in 1895 as a teenager, but was accepted as a postulant much later on 3 September 1901 at the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona. On 29 September 1902, she commenced her novitiate and received the religious habit.