Maria Assunta Pallotta

On May 5, 1898, she left her family to join the motherhouse of the congregation in Rome. She began her novitiate in Grottaferrata, where she dedicated herself to the humblest tasks with constant joy. Her superiors immediately noticed her docility and spirit of service. She pronounced her first vows on December 8, 1900, in Rome, taking the name Sister Maria Assunta. In 1902, she was sent to Florence, to the house of the Holy Name of Jesus, where she continued to perform modest domestic work. It was there that she pronounced her perpetual vows on February 13, 1904. Deeply moved by the martyrdom of seven of her sisters who were beheaded in China on July 9, 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, Sister Maria Assunta urgently requested to be sent on a mission to that country. Her request was accepted. After receiving the blessing of Pope Saint Pius X, she embarked from Naples on March 19, 1904, and arrived in Dongergou (Tong-Eul-Keou), in the Shanxi province of China, on June 18, 1904. In this mission, she was assigned the tasks of cook and nurse at the orphanage. She cared for the orphans with devotion and even learned some prayers in the Chinese language through her contact with them.

During the harsh winter of 1905, a terrible typhus epidemic broke out in the Shanxi region, severely affecting the orphanage and the mission. Sister Maria Assunta devoted herself tirelessly to the sick. She contracted the disease herself on March 19, 1905, the anniversary of her departure from Italy. Feeling her end approaching, she asked to receive the last sacraments on March 25. She lived her final moments in deep union with God. On April 7, 1905, she passed away peacefully at the age of 26. Twenty minutes before her death, and during the three days that followed, a mysterious and intense fragrance (reminiscent of violets and incense) filled her room and then the entire mission house. This extraordinary phenomenon deeply struck the local Christians and the Chinese inhabitants, who began to call her "the saint of perfumes." In 1913, during the exhumation of her remains, her body was discovered perfectly intact and incorrupt.

Impressed by the accounts of her death and the discovery of her incorrupt body, Pope Saint Pius X requested the rapid opening of her cause for beatification as early as 1913. The diocesan process was successfully completed and her inherited virtues were recognized by the Church. After the recognition of miracles of healing attributed to her intercession, Pope Pius XII solemnly celebrated her beatification on November 7, 1954, in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. She is the first non-martyr missionary nun in China to be raised to the altars.

The spirituality of Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta rests on the "purity of intention," which consists of performing the most ordinary actions and the humblest tasks solely for the love of God. Her life motto was: "Do everything for the love of God." She traced a "little way" of holiness, made of simplicity, humility, and total abandonment to the divine will, very close to that of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Her legacy remains alive within the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary and in her native village of Force, where she is regularly celebrated.