MARIA della PASSIONE. — Born Elena Chappotin, founder of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, was born in Nancy on 21 May 1839 and died at San Remo (Imperia) on 5 March 1904.
After a long period of waiting and severe domestic trials, she entered the religious order of the Reparatrix Sisters in Toulouse in 1865. The following year she left for India, where she served as superior at Tuticorin and later as provincial of the Madura mission. There she revived and greatly expanded the works with indefatigable zeal. Recalled to Rome in 1877, she founded, with the blessing of Pius IX, a new society, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (victims, adorers, and missionaries), which in 1885 was affiliated to the Third Order of St. Francis. Leo XIII approved the constitutions written by the foundress in 1896. Maria della Passione governed her foundation until her death, rapidly and firmly establishing houses and works in Europe and, above all, in the missions of Asia (India, Burma, Ceylon, China, Mongolia, Japan), Africa (Madagascar, Zululand, Madeira, Mozambique, Congo, Tunisia), and the Americas. The beatification process was opened in 1923.