MARIA CROCIFISSA di Gesù. — First superior of the Passionists, in the world Faustina Costantini, born on 18 August 1713 at Corneto (today Tarquinia), died there on 15 November 1787. At the age of twenty she entered the Benedictines of the monastery of S. Lucia in Tarquinia; in 1771, by order of Clement XIV, she transferred to the monastery of the Passionists, founded by s. Paolo della Croce in the same city, as its first superior.
She was a religious of outstanding virtue, distinguished by her devotion to Jesus Crucified and by the most austere penances, performed in the spirit of an expiatory victim for the sins of mankind. She was endowed with profound mystical gifts. From 1738 she was under
BIBL.: A. Bresciani, La ven. M. C. di Savoia, Regina delle due Sicilie, 2ª ed., edited by E. Rosa, Rome 1936; A. Amante, M. C. di Savoia, Turin 1933; B. Croce, Uomini e cose della vecchia Italia, II, 2ª ed., Bari 1943, pp. 268–308.