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Blessed Maria Assunta

Blessed Maria Assunta is the first single F.M.M, to be beatified. (The others were a group of7 martyrs of China). Assunta came from a materially poor but spiritually rich family in the north of Italy. She thought her material poverty would be an obstacle to her becoming a religious, so she was overjoyed and ever grateful to be received into the Institute of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. She was ready to observe her Constitutions and to go wherever she was sent, but at the sametime, yearned for some far away mission. She spent the first years of her religious life doing the ordinary chores of the house, looking after the poultry, caring for the sick sisters … Then, what was not her joy when she was chosen to go to China! However, even there, the voyage was long and tedious, and the sea was sometimes very rough, so much so that Assunta, looking out from the deck saw the big fish pass by and said it would be all the same for her if the Lord wanted her in the mouth of one of those fish rather than in China! However, the Lord saw that she landed safely on the shores of China. Here, she continued doing the humble tasks of the house, but also studied the Chinese language so that she could converse with those who approached the house. Her life was cut short when she was hardly 27 years of age, for she caught the typhus fever and was carried away very quickly. The Lord saw she was ready. Her last words were “Shenti” meaning ‘Eucharist’ in Chinese. She had done nothing extraordinary, but only ordinary acts done in an extraordinary way, so much so that at her death a strong perfume of violets filled the air and remained there till she was buried. The Christians of that place still venerate her and a small religious congregation was founded there, adopting the spirituality of Blessed Maria Assunta,