Bl. Elizabeth Picenardi, OSM (February 19th)

Of the Saints or Commemorations that are celebrated this week:

February 17th – The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

February 19th - Bl. Elizabeth Picenardi, OSM

February  21st – St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

February 22nd – Chair of St. Peter


I’ve chosen to write about Bl. Elizabeth Picenardi, OSM.  I chose to write about her because she could easily be a parishioner at any number of parishes that we staff across the Servite world.


She was born in 1428 and most of her life in the town of Mantua in Lombardy, Italy.  


Her father, Leonard of Cremona, Steward for the (Marquis) Gonzaga family, wished that for the sake of the family, she’d marry “up,” that is, nobility.   


From early on in her life, however, she refused, becoming essentially a Servite tertiary, in a town where there apparently was no Servite community for her to join.  So she wore a Servite sisters’ habit even as she lived modestly in the home of her father, and after he passed away, at her sister’s.


She lived humbly, devoted to both the Holy Eucharist and Mother Mary.  She came to be known throughout the town and the surrounding region as a person of good counsel (in today’s terms a pretty good spiritual director), by tradition one who could even predict the future: “If you stay with this man, this is what’s going to happen …” 


By tradition, she even predicted the day and hour of her death, though she apparently made the prediction when she was already quite ill.


All that said, she was beloved in her community and the surrounding region, and by her devotion to both the Eucharist and the B.V. Mary, easily could have been a parishioner at my current parish, St. Philip Benizi in Fullerton, CA where we have at least a dozen people, often women, of good counsel, who are active members of both our Servite Secular Order Community, and our Nocturnal (Eucharistic) Adoration group.  


One does not need to be “great” to be a Saint, to be “good” (and holy) is literally, “good enough.”


 Bl. Elizabeth Picenardi, OSM pray for us!

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