Blessed Christine of Spoleto

Augustina Canozzi was born in the Como province of Italy about 1435. While young she was twice married and twice widowed. She also lived with a mercenary soldier and bore him a son who died in infancy. She decided to reform her life, took the name Christine to denote her complete conversion to Christ and became a member of the Augustinian Third Order in Verona.

She wandered from one Augustinian convent to another until finally settling at Spoleto in Umbria, not far from Cascia and Tolentino. Here she lived a life of penance and service before dying on 13th February, 1458 when still only twenty two. She was buried in the Augustinian church of St Nicholas, which was suppressed in Napoleonic times, and her body now rests in the church of St Gregory the Great in Spoleto. Her fame of sanctity and miracles increased and in 1834 Pope Gregory XVI confirmed her long-standing cult.


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