Maria Pia Mastena

After obtaining her teaching diploma in 1907, Sister Passitea was sent to various locations in the Veneto region. She notably spent nineteen years in Miane (province of Treviso), where she served as a teacher and school principal, while dedicating herself to the poor, the sick, and the disabled. However, she remained inhabited by a deep aspiration for the contemplative life. With the authorization of her superiors and the nihil obstat of the Holy See, she entered the Cistercian monastery of San Giacomo di Veglia on April 15, 1927. There, she received the name Sister Maria Pia. But after a few months, encouraged by the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, Msgr. Eugenio Beccegato, she understood that her true mission was active and educational. She left the monastery on November 15, 1927, and resumed teaching in San Fior. It was in San Fior that she laid the foundations for a new religious family. On October 24, 1932, with diocesan approval, the first habit-takings of the Religious of the Holy Face (Religiose del Santo Volto) took place. The congregation was canonically erected on December 8, 1936, the day Teresa Maria Mastena pronounced her perpetual vows under the name Mother Maria Pia. The institute received pontifical right recognition on December 10, 1947, by Pope Pius XII. Mother Maria Pia dedicated the rest of her life to consolidating and developing her foundation. The charism of the institute is summarized by its founder: "to propagate, repair, and restore the image of the gentle Jesus in souls." The sisters are actively engaged with the most destitute, managing schools, clinics, and canteens for poor children. During the Second World War, they devoted themselves tirelessly to feeding and caring for the victims of the conflict, without distinction of nationality or religion. In 1949, she founded the Santo Volto clinic in Rome, on the Aventine Hill.

Afflicted by serious health problems, notably a myocardial infarction, Mother Maria Pia Mastena died suddenly in Rome on June 28, 1951, at the age of 69. Her funeral was celebrated in Rome and then in San Fior, where her remains were transferred on December 26, 1953, to rest in the chapel of the Mother House of her congregation. The cause for beatification was officially opened on June 23, 1990. On July 5, 2002, Pope John Paul II signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues, granting her the title of Venerable.

The miracle accepted for her beatification concerns the scientifically inexplicable healing and resuscitation of the little girl Maria Azzurra De Lollis, daughter of the famous Italian actress Sandra Milo. Born prematurely at 28 weeks of gestation on May 5, 1970, at the Holy Face clinic in Rome, the child came into the world cyanotic, with no cardiac or respiratory activity. After more than twenty minutes of vain resuscitation attempts by the doctors (including the child's father and grandfather), the gynecologist wrote a death certificate. A religious sister of the Holy Face, Sister Costantina Ravazzolo, then took the lifeless body of the little girl to take her to the nursery. Refusing to resign herself, she placed her in an incubator, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and cardiac massage while fervently invoking the intercession of the foundress, Mother Maria Pia Mastena. A few moments later, the baby started, began to breathe, and then to cry. Subsequent medical examinations confirmed that this long lack of oxygen left no neurological or physical sequelae in the child. The diocesan inquiry into this miracle, conducted from 2000 to 2001, was validated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on April 5, 2002. On June 22, 2004, Pope John Paul II authorized the promulgation of the decree officially recognizing the miracle. The beatification ceremony was celebrated on November 13, 2005, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The rite was presided over by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, representing Pope Benedict XVI.

The spirituality of Blessed Maria Pia Mastena is deeply Eucharistic and centered on the contemplation and reparation of the Holy Face of Jesus. For her, the suffering face of Christ is reflected directly on the faces of the poor, the sick, and the abandoned. She loved to repeat to her sisters: "Our mission is to make the face of the sweet Jesus smile on the face of our brother!" Today, the Religious of the Holy Face continue the work of their founder. In addition to Italy, the congregation has established itself internationally, notably in Brazil and Indonesia, working with the most destitute populations through schools, orphanages, and care facilities.