Paola Elisabetta Cerioli

Left alone and without descendants, Costanza Cerioli saw in the abandoned children the sons that God had promised her. She began by welcoming a few orphans into her home in Comonte di Seriate, whose number gradually increased. From this charity, a religious institute was born: with a few companions, she gave birth to the congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bergamo, the foundation of which is dated December 8, 1857. Taking the religious name Paola Elisabetta, she conceived her work on the model of the Holy Family of Nazareth, wishing to offer orphans a true home rather than a simple asylum. Also concerned for boys and children of the countryside, she founded in 1863 a male branch, the Brothers of the Holy Family, established in Villacampagna di Soncino and oriented towards agricultural work and rural apostolate. Both institutes, animated by her spirituality of the family and service to the most humble, developed and survived her. Her work responded to a social reality of 19th-century Lombardy, marked by peasant poverty and the abandonment of children.

The spiritual journey of Paola Elisabetta Cerioli was shaped by trial: the successive loss of her children and then her husband led her to a deeper interiority, supported in particular by the Bishops of Bergamo, Pietro Luigi Speranza, and other spiritual directors. Rather than withdrawing into her grief, she converted her pain into a motherhood extended to children deprived of a family. Her spirituality was nourished by the contemplation of the Holy Family of Nazareth: she saw in the maternal love of Mary and the fatherhood of Joseph the model of the charity she wished to offer to orphans. Her biographers recognize in her the virtues of charity, piety, humility, simplicity, love of poverty, and absolute trust in Providence. This reputation for holiness, lived out in the silent service of the least among us and in fidelity to a life of prayer, accompanied her existence and continued after her death, supporting the cause that led to her beatification and subsequent canonization.

The cause of Paola Elisabetta Cerioli led to her beatification on March 19, 1950, during the Holy Year, by Pope Pius XII. Her canonization was pronounced on May 16, 2004, by Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, during a celebration that raised several new saints. According to Italian hagiographic sources, the miracle accepted for the canonization concerns the healing, deemed inexplicable, of a religious sister, Sister Michelina Rota, who was suffering from a tumor diagnosed in the early 1990s and declared cured without medical explanation. Her liturgical memorial is set for December 24, the day of her death; in the dioceses of Bergamo and Cremona, as well as in her institutes, she is also celebrated on January 23. Her canonization confirmed the esteem the foundress already enjoyed in the Bergamo region and within the congregations of the Holy Family that she had inspired.

The legacy of Saint Paola Elisabetta Cerioli continues above all in the congregations she founded: the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bergamo and the Brothers and Fathers of the Holy Family, present in Italy and beyond, who carry on her work of education and assistance for children, families, and rural environments. Her institute, whose motherhouse is located in Comonte di Seriate, perpetuates the memory of the foundress and her spirituality centered on the Holy Family of Nazareth. A figure of 19th-century Lombard charity, she is honored particularly in the dioceses of Bergamo, Cremona, and in her hometown of Soncino. Her message, which makes the family and the welcoming of abandoned children a place of education in faith and Christian life, retains an educational and social significance. Her figure remains a point of reference for religious communities and charitable works inspired by her example.