Paula Frassinetti

On August 12, 1834, at the sanctuary of San Martino d'Albaro, near Genoa, Paula Frassinetti and her companions consecrated themselves to God: seven young women in total committed themselves to this first community dedicated to the Christian education of youth. In 1835, Father Luca Passi, a priest from Bergamo and a friend of her brother Joseph, proposed that she take charge of the "Pious Work of Saint Dorothy," an existing apostolate focused on poor young girls in their work and living environments; it is from this encounter that the institute derives its name of Sisters of Saint Dorothy. The mission of the congregation is to evangelize through education, with a predilection for youth and the most destitute. The work spread rapidly: houses, boarding schools, and orphanages multiplied in Liguria and then throughout Italy. In 1841, Paula moved to Rome with two novices; in 1844, Pope Gregory XVI entrusted her with the direction of the Conservatory of Santa Maria del Rifugio, at Sant'Onofrio al Gianicolo, which became the motherhouse of the institute. During her lifetime, the congregation extended beyond Italy, notably to Portugal and Brazil.

The holiness of Paula Frassinetti manifested itself in a balance between overflowing apostolic activity and an interior life deeply abandoned to Providence. Her spirituality was marked by a spirit of laborious work placed at the service of education, and by a love of suffering accepted and offered. Several attested formulas summarize her spiritual teaching: she liked to repeat that the one who sacrifices the most is also the one who loves the most, and she saw in conformity to the will of God "the only jewel that we must seek," going so far as to make it her own "paradise." This confident docility to the divine will, lived in trials as well as in the direction of her institute, earned her a reputation for holiness during her lifetime that the rapid expansion of her congregation and the fidelity of her spiritual daughters only confirmed. An attentive woman of government and a spiritual mother to her religious, she combined firmness and gentleness in the accompaniment of the sisters and the young people entrusted to their care.

Having died in the odor of sanctity on June 11, 1882, in Rome, Paula Frassinetti was beatified by Pope Pius XI on June 8, 1930. The cause for canonization followed its course and a miracle was recognized for the canonization: the healing of Maria Maccarone, which occurred in San Calogero, in Calabria, on August 7, 1981. Bedridden for fourteen years by a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis, this woman, who was praying with the Sisters of Saint Dorothy to obtain the intercession of Blessed Paula, suddenly rose on the day of her fiftieth birthday and recovered the use of her limbs, to the astonishment of witnesses. Pope John Paul II proclaimed Paula Frassinetti a saint during a solemn celebration in Rome on March 11, 1984. The Catholic Church celebrates her liturgical memorial on June 11, the anniversary of her death. Her body, which remained incorrupt, is preserved and venerated under the altar of the chapel of the Dorothée sisters in Rome, on the Salita Sant'Onofrio.

The legacy of Saint Paula Frassinetti is perpetuated primarily through the congregation of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, which she founded and whose motherhouse remains established at Sant'Onofrio al Gianicolo, in Rome. Faithful to the educational charism of the foundress, the institute continues its apostolate of evangelization through the education of youth, particularly the poorest, through schools, boarding schools, and social works. From Italy, where it took root, the congregation expanded abroad during the lifetime of the foundress, particularly in Portugal and Brazil, and subsequently established itself on several continents. The tomb of the saint, housing her incorrupt body under the altar of the chapel of the Dorothées in Rome, remains a place of veneration. A figure of the missionary and educational impetus of 19th-century Italian Catholicism, Saint Paula Frassinetti is honored as a model of devotion to youth and of confident abandonment to the will of God.