Blessed Elisabetta Canori Mora

Blessed Elisabetta Canori Mora was a Roman woman, a wife and mother, a Trinitarian tertiary, and a mystic. She answered her husband’s infidelity and years of humiliation with fidelity, forgiveness, and prayer. The Church commemorates her on February 5.

She was born in Rome on November 21, 1774, the daughter of Tommaso Canori and Teresa Primoli, in a well-off family of sincere faith. For several years she was educated by the Augustinian nuns at Cascia in Umbria, where she received her First Holy Communion and gave herself fervently to prayer. For reasons of health she returned to Rome. There she entered social life and, as the apostolic letter of her beatification admits, began to feel the attraction of worldly vanity, yet she did not leave the path of good.

On January 10, 1796, she married a young Roman lawyer, Cristoforo Mora. After a few peaceful months her husband became involved with another woman. He drew away from his wife, humiliated and tormented her, neglected his work, squandered the family’s property, and reduced the family to extreme poverty. Elisabetta bore four daughters. Two died soon after birth, while Marianna and Lucina, lovingly brought up, were her consolation.

Some advised her to leave her husband. She refused: she wanted to keep the commitments she had taken on in the sacrament of marriage. She loved her husband, served him, and forgave him, trusting to the end in his conversion. To support herself and her daughters and to pay off his debts, she gave up her jewels, her furniture, and even her bed. Without shame she took on menial work and sewed shirts to order.

In 1801 a mysterious illness brought her to the brink of death. She recovered unexpectedly and from then on gave herself entirely to the service of God. Her prayer grew ever deeper, and the apostolic letter speaks of mystical gifts that strengthened her in poverty and amid the mockery of those close to her. She joined the Third Order of the Most Holy Trinity, the lay branch of the Trinitarians. She cared for the poor, the sick, and families in need, and many came to her home for counsel, consolation, and prayer. She offered herself to God for her husband’s conversion and for Rome and the Church, which was then going through hard times.

She died in Rome on February 5, 1825. She was buried in the Trinitarian church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, which she had often visited during her life and where her relics are venerated to this day. After her death, as she herself had foretold, Cristoforo Mora changed his life. He joined the Trinitarian Third Order and later became a Conventual Franciscan and a priest.

Pius XI recognized her heroic virtues in 1928. John Paul II beatified her on April 24, 1994, in Rome, in the Year of the Family, together with Gianna Beretta Molla and Isidore Bakanja. In his homily he called the two Italians women of heroic love. Of Elisabetta he said that amid no small marital difficulties she showed complete fidelity to the commitment made in the sacrament of marriage, brought up her daughters in a Christian way, and obtained her husband’s conversion.