Saint Paola Elisabetta Cerioli

Costanza Cerioli was born in Soncino, Lombardy, in 1816 and at nineteen was married to a much older, difficult man. Of their four children, three died as infants and the fourth, Carlo, died at sixteen; soon after, she was widowed. Instead of closing in on her grief, she used her inheritance to take in orphaned and abandoned children from the countryside, and in 1857 founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, taking the name Paola Elisabetta; she later founded the Brothers of the Holy Family for boys. She died on Christmas Eve, 1865, at Comonte near Bergamo, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2004.

Her body rests in the motherhouse at Comonte di Seriate. She is a special intercessor for parents who have lost a child.