Clotilde Micheli

Clotilde Micheli was born on 11 September 1849 in Imer, a mountain village in the Trentino region, which at that time formed part of the Austrian Empire. She was raised in a Catholic household and from childhood showed a strong inclination to prayer and to consecrated life. In 1867, when she was eighteen, she reported a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in which she was asked to found a religious congregation devoted to the Holy Angels and to the Christian education of young people. That experience became the reference point of her vocation, although many years of difficulty followed before she could give it a stable institutional form.

In seeking to follow this call she left her native region and for a time entered a convent in Germany, but she later returned to Italy, convinced that her place was not there. She lived in various Italian towns, often in poverty and obscurity, while continuing to pursue the foundation she believed had been requested of her. On 28 June 1891, in Caserta, she established the Congregation of the Sisters of the Angels and took the religious name Maria Serafina of the Sacred Heart. The new community dedicated itself to the education of girls, the care of the sick and the poor, and devotion to the angels. Its principal house was later established at Faicchio in the province of Benevento, in the Kingdom of Italy.

As foundress and superior, Maria Serafina of the Sacred Heart was regarded by those around her as a mystic. Accounts from her lifetime describe her as a stigmatic who received visions of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the angels. She directed the small congregation through its early years until her death at Faicchio on 24 March 1911, at the age of sixty-one. The Sisters of the Angels continued her work after her death and remain a religious institute in the Catholic Church.

A diocesan inquiry into her life and reputation for holiness was opened in the archdiocese of Benevento, and she received the title Servant of God. Pope John Paul II proclaimed her Venerable on 23 April 2004 after recognizing that she had practiced the Christian virtues to a heroic degree. Pope Benedict XVI later approved a miracle attributed to her intercession, and she was beatified on 28 May 2011 at a ceremony in Benevento over which Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided as papal legate. Her liturgical memorial is observed on 24 March. She has not been canonized. She is venerated in particular by the congregation she founded.