The “little saint” of Naples
The “little saint,” as Maria Francesca is nicknamed in Naples’ Spanish Quarters, a city of which she is co-patron along with Saint Januarius, is the protector of the family and unborn life, because her life includes numerous episodes testifying to her closeness to families: women believed to be infertile who had children, and spouses reconciled through her work of reconciliation.
From childhood, she displayed great faith and meekness in enduring the mistreatment of her father, a very strict and irascible man.
At the age of 16, she consecrated herself to the Lord in the Alcantarine Third Order of Saint Francis and, as an adult, moved with another tertiary to Vico Tre Re, into the house of her spiritual director, Father Giovanni Pessiri. She remained there until her death at the age of 76. She had the gift of prophecy and received the stigmata, experiencing the pains of Christ’s Passion every Friday and throughout Lent.
The shrine
A small shrine dedicated to her was built in Vico Tre Re a Toledo.
The main entrance leads into a small, square nave reserved for the faithful, at the far end of which is the altar, crowned by the statue of the Saint dressed in the characteristic Franciscan habit. The church’s secondary entrance, next to the main one, leads into two side chapels connected to each other. The first is dominated by a statue of the Madonna, placed in a corner inside an artificial grotto built entirely with stones from the grotto of Lourdes, symbolizing the spiritual and religious connection between the two places of worship. Further on, the adjoining chapel leads to the Saint’s tomb, which is continually visited by the faithful.
The house and chair of Saint Maria Francesca
From the side chapel, one reaches the stairs and then the Saint's home. Visitors are immediately struck by the hundreds and hundreds of ex votos, and pink and blue ribbons adorning the wall of the first room in the home, often accompanied by wonderfully sweet and lively photos of newborns; these are signs of the gratitude of women devoted to the Saint for having received the “miracle” of fertility, a divine miracle of which the Saint is the mediator, as she intercedes with God.
They then enter another room, where their attention is drawn to the chair on which the faithful - especially women who wish to have a child - devoutly sit to pray and ask for the intercession of Saint Maria Francesca. The chair, where she would sit to rest and recover from her labors and the pain she endured, is now where devout people sit to speak to her, confide their worries or suffering to her, and entrust their requests for grace to her.
A nun from the Congregation of the Daughters of Maria Francesca seats the pilgrims one at a time on the chair and explains to them that the most important miracle to ask for is faith and conversion; she takes a case containing two relics (a vertebra and a lock of hair) and, inviting them to pray, places it on the head and heart of those who invoke grace.
And Saint Maria Francesca continues to work and intercede.
To learn more about the Sanctuary
Sanctuary of S. Maria Francesca
Vico Tre Re a Toledo, 13
80132 – Naples
Tel: 081 42 50 11
email: info@santuariosantamariafrancesca.it
How to get there the Sanctuary
To learn more about Saint Maria Francesca
