Blessed Elia of Saint Clement

Teodora Fracasso was born at Bari in 1901 and baptised four days later by her uncle, Don Carlo Fracasso. Her father was a master painter and decorator, her mother kept the house; of their nine children four died young. From the family home in via Piccinni, where there was a small garden, she said that at four or five she had seen in a dream a beautiful Lady walking among rows of flowering lilies, and promised her she would become a nun. She made her First Communion on 8 May 1911. She joined the Dominican association named for Blessed Imelda Lambertini and the Angelic Militia of Saint Thomas Aquinas, gathering friends at home to pray. Guided by her spiritual father, Father Pedro Fiorillo, she entered the Dominican Third Order, taking the name Inés, and professed in 1915 at only fourteen by special dispensation. She entered the Discalced Carmelites on 8 April 1920, received the habit that November as Sister Elia of Saint Clement, and made her first vows in December 1921.