Edda Maria Caterina Roda

On June 12, 1960, Edda began her novitiate in Loano and received the religious name of Sister Adalberta of the Most Holy Trinity. After the Second Vatican Council, she chose to resume her baptismal name, becoming Sister Edda. She made her first temporary vows on October 2, 1962, in Loano, and then her perpetual vows on October 16, 1967, at the General House in Genoa.

Sister Edda was initially assigned to the San Francesco clinic in Bergamo as an assistant to the bursar. She specialized in mechanized accounting, obtained a diploma in preschool teaching, and completed an advanced course in theology. However, her religious life was heavily tested by illness. Between 1966 and 1973, and again in 1987, she underwent numerous hospitalizations for a severe "asthenic syndrome," which caused her physical collapses and drops in morale. These psychophysical disorders sometimes aroused misunderstanding from those in her community, who wrongly labeled her as depressive or hypochondriac.

Despite these trials, Sister Edda dedicated herself fully to her mission. From 1974, she was assigned to the house in Genoa. From 1980 to 1995, she engaged intensely in catechesis and participated actively in "Popular Missions" throughout Italy. Endowed with great affability and a simple, profound way of speaking, she knew how to touch hearts, teach the Gospel, and console those who were suffering.

During one of these popular missions, probably in 1994, Sister Edda was the victim of a violent assault in which she was beaten and raped by three men. She kept this tragedy secret, offering it up in the silence of prayer, and courageously continued her missionary activity without letting her wound show.

In August 1995, she was diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer (uterine carcinoma). She calmly announced the news herself to her sisters in the refectory. After receiving treatment in Genoa, she requested to be transferred to the San Francesco clinic in Bergamo to spend her final moments there. She died there on June 16, 1996, at the age of 55. Her mortal remains have rested since 2018 in the chapel of that same clinic.

The reputation for holiness of Sister Edda Roda spread rapidly after her death, notably due to her heroic patience in the face of illness and her deep life of union with God in the midst of trials. On September 23, 2017, the diocesan process for her beatification was officially opened within the curia of Bergamo.

After the closure of the diocesan inquiry, the cause was transmitted to Rome. On May 20, 2023, Pope Francis authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues. Sister Edda Maria Caterina Roda was then declared venerable.

No miracle has yet been officially recognized for her beatification.

The spirituality of Sister Edda Roda is profoundly Trinitarian. She conceived of her soul as a "walking monastery of the Trinity," living in continual adoration of the three divine Persons whom she felt pulsing within her. Her spiritual journal bears witness to this total abandonment: "O Father, O Son, O Holy Spirit, O Most Holy Trinity, let me abandon myself in You, let me breathe Your Love, Your Goodness, Your simplicity, and grant that I may never leave You" (Journal, December 3, 1976).

Sister Edda knew how to transfigure her human fragility, both physical and psychological, into a path of purification and intimate union with the suffering Christ. Nicknamed "the apostle of consolation," she leaves behind the image of a humble religious, joyful despite pain, and entirely surrendered to the will of God in the ordinary of daily life.