View source for Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus

{{Infobox saint
|honorific_prefix=[[Saint]]
|name=Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus
|honorific_suffix=C.I.I.C.
|image=Santa Paolina.jpg
|imagesize=260px
|caption=Portrait of Saint Pauline
|titles=Religious and foundress
|birth_name=Amabile Lucia Visintainer
|birth_date={{birth date|1865|12|16|mf=y}}
|birth_place=[[Vigolo Vattaro]], [[County of Tyrol]], [[Austria-Hungary]]
|death_date={{death date and age|1942|7|9|1865|12|16|mf=y}}
|death_place=[[Ipiranga (district of São Paulo)|Ipiranga]], [[São Paulo (state)]], [[Vargas Era|Brazil]]
|feast_day=July 9
|venerated_in=[[Roman Catholic Church]]<br>(Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Brazil)
|beatified_date=October 18, 1991
|beatified_place=[[Florianópolis]], [[Santa Catarina (state)|Santa Catarina]], Brazil,
|beatified_by=[[Pope John Paul II]]
|canonized_date=May 19, 2002
|canonized_place=[[Vatican City]],
|canonized_by=[[Pope John Paul II]]
|major_shrine=Sanctuary of St. Pauline, [[Nova Trento]], Santa Catarina, Brazil.
}}
'''Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus''', C.I.I.C. (born '''Amabile Lucia Visintainer'''; December 16, 1865 – July 9, 1942), was a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] immigrant from [[Austria-Hungary]] to Brazil who became the foundress of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, [[Religious sister|religious sisters]] who serve the poor.
She was the first [[Brazilian people|Brazilian]] to be proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church when she was [[canonized]] on May 19, 2002, by [[Pope John Paul II]]. Pauline suffered from [[diabetes]] for much of her life and is considered an "unofficial" [[patron saint]] of diabetics.<ref>[https://aleteia.org/2020/05/01/brazils-first-canonized-female-saint-was-a-lifelong-diabetic/# Peterson, Larry. "Brazil’s first canonized female saint was a lifelong diabetic", ''Aleteia'', May 1, 2020]</ref>
==Life==
===Early life===
She was born '''Amabile Lucia Visintainer''' on December 16, 1865, the second daughter of Antonio Napoleone Visintainer and Anna Pianezzer<ref name="SQPN">(en) [http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-paulina-do-coracao-agonizante-de-jesus/ Saint Paulina do Coração Agonizante de Jesus] at the Catholic Forum.</ref> in the town of [[Vigolo Vattaro]], then in the [[County of Tyrol]], part of [[Austro-Hungary]], now in Italy.<ref name="Vat">{{Cite web |title=Paulina do Coração Agonizante de Jesus |url=https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2002/documents/ns_lit_doc_20020519_paulina_en.html |website=Vatican News Service}}</ref> Her ancestors were Germanic, who had settled in the region of Vigolo Vattaro as early as 1491, their surname being originally spelled '''Wiesenteiner'''.<ref>(en) Farace, ''Love's Harvest'', p. 108</ref>
Like many others in the area, the Visintainer family was very poor but practising Catholics.<ref name="Vat" /> In September 1875, the family, along with a hundred other people of the town, about a fifth of its population, emigrated to the [[Santa Catarina (state)|State of Santa Catarina]] in Brazil, where they founded the village of Vigolo, now part of [[Nova Trento]].<ref name="SQPN" /> She was known even at a youthful age for her piety and charity. From an early age she spoke of giving her life to God. She had very little intellectual education, but great love for the Catholic faith and for the suffering and poor.<ref name="SPC" /> After receiving her [[First Communion]] at about age 12, she began to participate in the life of the local [[parish]], teaching [[catechism]] to children, visiting the sick and cleaning the local [[chapel]].<ref name="Vat" />
===Religious life===
On 12 July 1890, Visintainer and her friend, Virginia Rosa Nicolodi, under the [[spiritual direction]] of a [[Jesuit]] priest, Luigi Rossi, committed their lives to religious service, under dedication to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.<ref name="SQPN" /> They began by caring for a woman suffering from terminal cancer, in a small house which was donated to the small community and the young girls began a schedule of religious living. After the woman's death the following year, they were joined by a third friend, Teresa Anna Maule.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biografia |url=http://www.ciic.org.br/rede/index.php/santa-paulinam/biografia |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029205659/http://www.ciic.org.br/rede/index.php/santa-paulinam/biografia |archive-date=2013-10-29 |access-date=2013-10-26 |website=Congregação da Irmãzinhas da Imaculada Conceição |language=pt}}</ref>
In 1895, Rossi and Visintainer, seeing the need for a more formal and secure organization of the young women coming to them, decided to establish a [[religious congregation]] called the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by José de Camargo Barros, [[Bishop of Curitiba]].<ref name="SQPN" /> In December of that same year, the founding trio took [[religious vows]]. Visintainer took the [[religious name]] by which she is now known. The congregation, Brazil's first locally founded, grew quickly throughout the state, and in 1903 Pauline was elected their [[Superior General]] for life. She moved from Nova Trento to [[Ipiranga (district of São Paulo)|Ipiranga]], [[São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]], where she opened a convent of the congregation in order to take care of orphans, the children of former slaves – [[slavery in Brazil|slavery]] having been ended by the [[Empire of Brazil]] only in 1888, and aged slaves who had been left to die because they could no longer work.<ref name="Vat" />
In 1909 Pauline was removed from her position as Superior General by Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, [[Archbishop of São Paulo]], following a series of disputes within the congregation. She was sent to work with the sick at the Santa Casa and the elderly of the Hospice of St. [[Vincent de Paul]] at [[Bragança Paulista]], without being able to assume an active role in her own congregation.<ref name="Vat" /> She spent her spare time praying in support of the congregation.<ref name="SQPN" /> In 1918, with the permission of Archbishop Duarte, she was brought back by the Superior General, Vicência Teodora, to live at the General [[Motherhouse]] of the congregation at Ipiranga, where she would remain until her death.<ref name="Vat" /> Pauline was acknowledged as the "Venerable Mother Foundress", when the [[Decree of Praise]] was granted by [[Pope Pius XI]] on 19 May 1933 to the Congregation of the Little Sisters, establishing it as one of [[pontifical right]].<ref name="Vat" />
Pauline's health began a long, slow decline in 1938, as she fought a losing battle with diabetes.<ref name="SQPN" /> In two operations, first her middle finger and then her right arm were amputated. She spent the last months of her life totally blind. On 9 July 1942 she died with the last words, "God's will be done".<ref name="Vat" />
===Veneration===
[[File:Santa Paulina 1.jpg|thumb|Statue of Saint Pauline in [[Nova Trento]], [[Santa Catarina (state)|Santa Catarina]], Brazil.]]
Pauline was [[beatified]] by [[Pope John Paul II]] on 18 October 1991, during his visit to [[Florianópolis]].<ref name="Vat" /> For her beatification, three relics were made from the [[Phalanges|fingerbones]] of her remaining hand. One was given to Pope John Paul, the second to the convent where she had lived and is currently housed in the [[Shrine of St. Paulina]] in [[Nova Trento]], and the other to her relations, Albert Visintainer and his family of [[Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania]], United States. This can be seen at the St. Pauline Visintainer Center in [[Kulpmont, Pennsylvania]].<ref name="SPC"> {{Cite web|date=2008-06-25|title=Saint Pauline Foundation|url=http://www.saintpaulinecenter.org/bio.htm|access-date=2021-06-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625051805/http://www.saintpaulinecenter.org/bio.htm|archive-date=2008-06-25}}</ref>
Pope John Paul II later [[canonized]] Paulina on 19 May 2002 in a ceremony in [[Saint Peter's Square]],<ref name="SQPN" /> where she became the first Brazilian female saint. Hundreds of Brazilians, including then-President [[Fernando Henrique Cardoso]], attended the event.<ref name="BBC">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1996288.stm "Brazil gets first female saint"]. [[BBC News]]. May 19, 2002.</ref>
Her feast day is July 9.<ref>[http://saintsresource.com/saint-index/st-pauline-of-the-agonizing-heart/ "St. Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus", Saints Resource, RCL Benziger] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307202111/http://saintsresource.com/saint-index/st-pauline-of-the-agonizing-heart/ |date=2014-03-07 }}</ref>
==See also==
*[[Frei Galvão]]
==References==
<references />
==Literature==
* (en) Frederick A. Farace, [[Licentiate of Sacred Theology|S.T.L.]], ''Love's Harvest:  The Life of Blessed Pauline'', published 1994 (Milford, Ohio, USA:  Faith Publishing Co., 1997) {{ISBN|1-877678-31-7}}
* (pt) Gesiel [Theodoro da Silva] Júnior, ''Madre Paulina – Uma holy passou por Avaré'' [One Saint just for [[Avaré]]] (Avaré, Brazil: Editions Gril, 2002)
* (it) Célia B[astiana]. Cadorin, ''Essere per gli altri - Cronistoria di Madre Paolina del Cuore Agonizzante di Gesù'' [Be for others - Biography of Mother Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus] (Vigolo Vattaro, Trentino, Italy: ''Congregazione Piccole Suore dell'Immacola Concezione, Casa Madre Paolina'' [Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, House of Mother Pauline], 1989)
* (it) Guido Lorenzi, ''La Beata Madre Paolina - fra carisma e obbedienza'' [Blessed Mother Pauline – Between Charisma and Obedience]. (Milan: Edizioni Àncora, 1991)  {{ISBN|88-7610-383-X}}
* (it) Anonymous, ''Piccola storia di una grande Santa'' [Little Story of a Great Saint] (Trento, Italy:  ''Vita Trentina Editrice'' [Trentino Life Publishing], 2002)
==External links==
* (en) [https://web.archive.org/web/20061017200234/http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/saintp3w.htm Saint Paulina] at Catholic Forum
{{Subject bar |portal1=Saints |portal2= Biography |portal3= Catholicism |portal4= Brazil}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paulina}}
[[Category:1865 births]]
[[Category:1942 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Trentino]]
[[Category:Emigrants from Austria-Hungary to Brazil]]
[[Category:Founders of Catholic religious communities]]
[[Category:Deaths from diabetes in Brazil]]
[[Category:Burials in São Paulo (state)]]
[[Category:Beatifications by Pope John Paul II]]
[[Category:Canonizations by Pope John Paul II]]
[[Category:Brazilian Roman Catholic saints]]
[[Category:19th-century Christian saints]]
[[Category:20th-century Christian saints]]
[[Category:Christian female saints of the Late Modern era]]
[[Category:Venerated Catholics by Pope John Paul II]]
[[Category:20th-century Brazilian Roman Catholic nuns]]
[[Category:19th-century Brazilian Roman Catholic nuns]]