Blessed Mary Magdalene of the Incarnation

Caterina Sordini was born at Grosseto in 1770, the fourth of nine children of a deeply Catholic family. At seventeen her father arranged her marriage to a maritime merchant; she resisted, then complied. Adorned with the jewels her betrothed had given her, she turned to the mirror and saw instead the image of the crucified Christ, who asked whether she meant to leave him for another. In February 1788 she visited the Franciscan Tertiary monastery at Ischia di Castro and entered on the spot, to her father's shock, taking the name Sister Mary Magdalene of the Incarnation. On 19 February 1789 she saw in ecstasy Jesus enthroned in the Blessed Sacrament, surrounded by adoring virgins, and heard herself chosen to establish a work of perpetual adorers. Elected abbess in 1802, she drew up the rule of the new institute and went to Rome in 1807, settling near the Trevi Fountain. The French occupation confiscated the convent and suppressed the order, and she was exiled to Tuscany, where she formed a new group of Adorers.