Blessed Camilla Battista Varano, 1458-1524, the illegitimate daughter of an Italian nobleman, was a mystic who had to defy her father in order to enter the convent of the Poor Clares.According to an autobiographical letter, when she was 8 or 10 years old, she heard a Franciscan priest preaching about Christ's passion and made a vow that every Friday she would shed at least one tear for Jesus' suffering.
What initially began as a game became a powerful form of meditation on the Passion.
When she was 18, she felt called to enter the convent, but her father wouldn't hear of it. She was not able to join the Poor Clare convent in Urbino, Italy, until she was 21. She took the name Sister Battista (Baptist).
Her writings, mainly based on mystical experiences received while praying, include the "Treatise on the Mental Sufferings of Jesus Christ Our Lord," which she initially attributed to an unnamed sister.
The central thesis of the book is that because Jesus was divine and his love for humanity was infinite, his mental suffering during his passion also was without limit.
She died during the plague in 1524. Almost 320 years later, Pope Gregory XVI recognized the uninterrupted devotion of the faithful to her, which in effect took the place of a beatification ceremony and allowed her to be referred to as Blessed Camilla.
When she was 18, she felt called to enter the convent, but her father wouldn't hear of it. She was not able to join the Poor Clare convent in Urbino, Italy, until she was 21. She took the name Sister Battista (Baptist).
Her writings, mainly based on mystical experiences received while praying, include the "Treatise on the Mental Sufferings of Jesus Christ Our Lord," which she initially attributed to an unnamed sister.
The central thesis of the book is that because Jesus was divine and his love for humanity was infinite, his mental suffering during his passion also was without limit.
She died during the plague in 1524. Almost 320 years later, Pope Gregory XVI recognized the uninterrupted devotion of the faithful to her, which in effect took the place of a beatification ceremony and allowed her to be referred to as Blessed Camilla.
SIC: TBP/USA