Today, October 20, is the memorial of Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin.
Born Anna Francesca Boscardin to a poor peasant family, she was nicknamed “The Goose” because of her lack of intelligence and mental slowness.
Her childhood was full of trials. She had to endure her father Angelo’s violent behavior whenever he was drunk. She worked as a housemaid at some point.
Due to her slowness, religious congregations rejected her. When she joined the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Heart in Vincenza, Italy in 1904, she took the name Maria Bertilla. She trained as a nurse in 1907 after working in the convent’s kitchen and laundry.
She once told her superior, “I can’t do anything. I’m a poor thing, a goose. Teach me. I want to be a saint.”
She was assigned to the hospital in Treviso, Italy, a facility managed by the Sisters of Saint Dorothy. Maria Bertilla worked in the children’s ward, where she became an instant favorite because of her simple, gentle way with the kids.
One time, her jealous supervisor got angry because Maria Bertilla was enjoying the respect and high regard of people. That supervisor reassigned Maria Bertilla to the hospital laundry. When the congregation’s Mother General learned about this, she moved Maria Bertilla back to nursing, even making her the supervisor of the children’s ward in 1919.
She cared for wounded Italian soldiers during World War I. Even when the area was being bombed left and right, Maria Bertilla stayed and took good care of the patients. After this episode, her long-time painful tumor got worse, which caused her death in 1922 at age 34.
Pope Pius XII beatified her in 1952. She was canonized in 1961 by Pope St. John XXIII. Some of her patients and relatives attended her canonization.