PIERANTONI, LIVIA

She entered the Sisters of Charity in 1886 and was assigned to the Arcispedale of S. Spirito in Sassia, where she headed the tuberculosis ward. There she demonstrated admirable patience and charity toward all, even though she herself was afflicted by the disease and often mistreated and reviled by some of the patients. One of these, a convalescent but dismissed for misconduct, convinced that Sister Agostina had reported him, decided to take revenge. Entering the hospital unseen, he lay in wait for his victim and struck her with seven knife wounds, piercing her heart. Sister Agostina received an extraordinary funeral; yet the beneficent memory of her virtues was what prompted the initiation of her beatification process. Her cause was introduced in 1946.