Isabela de Rosis
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Madre Isabella de Rosis (1842–1911) was an Italian religious sister and foundress of the Congregation of the Reparatrix Sisters of the Sacred Heart. In December 2005,
Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
proclaimed her as a Venerable Servant of God, the first step on the road to
canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...
.


Biography

Mother Isabella de Rosis was born on 9 June 1842. Her parents were
Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...
Domiziano de Rosis and Baroness Gabriella Francesca Berlingieri, nobles of
Rossano Rossano is a town and ''frazione'' of Corigliano-Rossano in the province of Cosenza, Calabria, southern Italy. The city is situated on an eminence from the Gulf of Taranto. The town is known for its marble and alabaster quarries. The town is t ...
,
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, Italy. The eldest of nine children, she was sent to the Royal boarding school of Saint Clare in
Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, an exclusive school for the nobility, at the age of 8. While in the boarding school she lived the daily life of the sisters, shared their life of prayer, and practiced mortification and penance. She was an example of piety, firmness, discipline, and silence, and loved always to be recollected. At the age of 15 Isabella consecrated herself to the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus ( la, Cor Jesu Sacratissimum) is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devo ...
with the Formula of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, promising love and reparation. She realised this saint's spirituality during her stay in the boarding school of St. Clare. Her years at the boarding school had a decisive impact on her. At the boarding school, she obtained the basis of her spiritual formation and were her religious vocation matured. Between the years 1860–1874 she tried to enter in the different religious institutes devoted to the Sacred Heart; the Pia Unione of the Handmaids, Oblates of the Sacred Heart, Daughters of Charity in Paris to name a few. Finally, after receiving spiritual direction from her confessor, she founded the Congregation of the Reparatrix Sisters of the Sacred Heart on 24 October 1875.


Spirituality

Her devotion to the Sacred Heart symbolized the spiritual journey that Mother Isabella travelled and embodied the essence of this devotion. Her spirituality represented her most typical expressions: love, the practice of virtue, prayer, consecration, penance and reparation. She lived not for herself but for the Lord in a continuous attempt to forget herself in order to please God, always keeping her heart free from the world’s many attractions and enticements. She occupied herself solely with the thought of serving God and the complete fulfillment of His will, in order that Jesus must reign as absolute sovereign in her heart. She was determined to seek perfection with a firm resolution and not content herself with a comfortable life but rather with a holy life attained through the practice of all the virtues, thus her insistence in living in meditation, mortification and withdrawal. Then she wished to be the “victim of love”. To make amends for man countless offenses against the infinite goodness of God. Mother Isabella accepted everything from the hands of the Lord, endured everything with love, remained always faithful to the ideals of reparation. Years later, she was relieved of the burden of Superior General when she found herself alone and abandoned in the Mother House at Naples. There she wrote “Isabella, may your life in this corner so remote in the world be peaceful: for such is the Lord’s will”.


The concept of reparation

The concept of reparation shows up in all of her writings as a lifelong commitment and as a motive of joy. For the essence of reparation is love, which allows one to bear the cross together with Jesus without ever feeling its weight, experiencing only joy. The intense moments of the Reparatrix Spirituality: * Contemplation of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection *
Eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...
ic adoration *
Holy Mass The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass, "the same Christ ...
* Holy Communion To this ideal, she desired that her institute be a witness to the name that she bestowed upon it: Reparatrix Sisters of the Sacred Heart.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Rosis, Isabella 1842 births 1911 deaths 19th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns People from Rossano Venerated Catholics by Pope Benedict XVI 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns