Saint of the day

St. Bertilla Boscardin

 

Anna Francesca Boscardin was born October 6, 1888 in Brendola, Italy. She lived a very difficult childhood in a poor peasant family and had a violently abusive alcoholic father. She had very little education, worked as a house servant as a girl and was considered not very intelligent. Her family nicknamed her “the goose” due to her intelligence.
Things changed somewhat when she entered the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Heart in 1904, taking the name Bertilla. After working in the convent’s kitchen and laundry for three years, she trained as a nurse.
She worked in the children’s ward of the sisters’ hospital in Treviso, becoming the children’s favorite for her simple and gentle way. She cared for wounded Italian soldiers during World War I, even staying with patients while the area was being bombed.
An envious supervisor reassigned Bertilla, now popular among the patients, to the hospital laundry. When her mother-general heard of this, she made Bertilla head of the children’s ward in 1919. Bertilla died three years later of cancer.
Many healing miracles have been reported at her tomb. She was canonized in 1961 by Pope John XXIII before a crowd that included many of her former patients.