Saint Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi

Caterina Lucrezia de' Pazzi was born in Florence on April 2, 1566, into one of the city's wealthiest families. As a girl she loved prayer, taught the catechism to poor children and, after her first Communion at ten, consecrated her virginity to God. Refusing the marriages her family planned, at sixteen she entered the Carmelite monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, taking the name Mary Magdalene.

During a grave illness she made her profession in 1584, and soon began to experience ecstasies in which she spoke aloud of the love of God, the Trinity and the Passion; her sisters wrote down her words, which fill several volumes. She then endured five years of spiritual darkness and temptation, and in her last years a painful illness that she offered with patience. She died on May 25, 1607. She was canonized in 1669, and her incorrupt body is venerated in Florence.

Carmelites honor her as one of their great mystics, and Florence keeps her feast with special devotion. In Italy and among Carmelite communities in Latin America, she is invoked by the sick and by those going through spiritual dryness.