Beatification of Sister of Charity

Giulia Valle was born on June 26, 1847 in the heart of a magnificent valley in Northern Italy. She grew up with the taste and desire for beautiful things, until she met beauty itself, God.

Daughter of a merchant, she was obliged to travel with her family while still a young girl. She spent a few years at Besancon, in France, where she attended the school of the Sisters of Charity. In this school she developed her natural gifts. Simple, intelligent and spontaneous, she proved to possess a great finesse of sentiments and a remarkable ability to reflect and to give of herself.

Suffering did not spare her own family. Her father's second marriage was the cause of her brother's departure. He did not get on well with his step-mother, so he decided to leave. They never heard from him again. The wound caused by this break in the family brought her closer to those who suffer.

As a religious (she took the name Suor Nemesia) she became an expert educator, a tender mother for the orphans, and a fine guide for her community. She had many novices who learned from her how to follow God's paths, to see God's face in the sufferings of others, and to serve God in the poor. She died on November 18, 1916.

The cause for her canonisation is under way. She is being beatified by Pope John Paul II next Sunday after the Congregation for Saints recognised a miracle obtained through her intercession: Sr Maria Luisa Ferrero was healed from severe abdominal pains, the intestinal obstruction to a metastasis and peritonitis.

Sr Nemesia's motto was "goodness". One of her sayings is:

It is nice to be good
Let the motto of life be goodness.
Goodness towards those who suffer... towards the victims of wrong suffering...
Goodness towards the wicked... they too suffer
Goodness towards everyone
Everyone has his/her anguish and we must share in everyone's pain.