Saint Maria Ripamonti

Maria Ripamonti (26 May 1909 – 4 July 1954), also known by her religious name Lucia dell'Immacolata, was an Italian Roman Catholic and a professed religious from the Ancelle della carità. Ripamonti worked at a spinning mill before leaving her hometown in 1932 for Brescia to enter a religious congregation after having met a visiting nun in her hometown. In 1938 she made her perpetual profession and started residing in the order's motherhouse in Brescia and was later diagnosed late with a serious illness that led to her death in 1954. Her order after her death started to request for an official beatification process to be launched and this took place in the Brescia diocese in 1992 and she became titled as a Servant of God. Pope Francis later confirmed her to be Venerable in 2017 upon the acknowledgement of her life of heroic virtue; the same pope confirmed a miracle attributed to her intercession which shall enable for Ripamonti to be beatified in Brescia; it was scheduled to be held on 9 May 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic forced its postponement. She was beatified on 23 October 2021. Maria Ripamonti was born in Acquate in the province of Lecco on 26 May 1909 as the last of four children to Ferdinando Ripamonti; her baptism was celebrated on 30 May. Ripamonti made her First Communion in 1916 and then made her confirmation later in 1918. In her adolescence she began working in a spinning mill in order to support her siblings and was a frequent attendee at Mass while she also would tend to children and would collaborate with those in the Catholic Action movement for parish initiatives. The parish priest Luigi Piatti was a confidante of hers and would provide her with religious instruction and formation. In 1932 she left for Brescia in order to be admitted into the Ancelle della carità after she met one of the order's religious in her hometown around that time.