VINCENZA GEROSA, saint. - Co-foundress of the Institute of the Sisters of Charity, or of Maria Bambina, born at Lovere (diocese of Brescia) on 29 Oct. 1784, died there on 28 June 1847.
Together with her sister Rosa, she offered as a shelter for the sick a villa she had inherited, which only upon their death would become a hospital; and she called the future St. Bartolomea Capitanio to direct II. Knowing that the latter was meanwhile thinking of founding a new Institute, which would broaden its aims and enlarge its field of work, G. wished to make herself her companion and fellow sister, reserving for herself, as she said, the part of the ox. The new Congregation was founded in that hospital on 21 Nov. 1832.
When Capitanio died at the beginning of the work, the entire burden of drafting the Constitutions, launching and obtaining approval for the Institute, and forming the new recruits fell upon G., who, although not endowed with great intellectual gifts, yet rich in common sense and possessing a prayerful, penitential, and heroic soul, knew how to overcome every difficulty, increasing the number of houses and sisters and spreading them also to mission lands. At her death she left 24 houses with 243 religious. She was beatified by Pius XI on 7 March 1933 and canonized by Pius XII on 18 May 1950. Feast: 28 June.