Consolata Betrone

Maria Consolata Betrone (6 April 1903 – 18 July 1946), baptised as Pierina Maria Betrone, commonly known as Consolata Betrone, was an Italian Catholic mystic and nun of the Capuchin Poor Clares order.

Consolata Betrone was known for the intense propagation of the Holy Rosary, along with reputed apparitions by the Sacred Heart of Jesus and her guardian angel in 1916 during the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The reputed messages asked for the recitation of: "Jesus, Mary, I love you! Save Souls!", in reparation for blasphemies against the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pious devotion is very popular among Filipino and Portuguese Catholics, who include invocations in their recitation of the rosary along with the Fatima Prayer.

Life

Pierina Lorenzina Giovanna Betrone was the daughter of Pietro Betrone and Giuseppina Nirino, the owners of a bakery in Saluzzo (Cuneo) and then managers of a restaurant in Airasco (Turin). Pierina was the second of six daughters born of her father's second marriage. She joined the association of the Company of the Daughters of Mary in the parish of San Massimo in Turin. After a visit to the tomb of Don Bosco in Valsalice, Pierina decided it was time to embark on a religious vocation. Her reading of The Story of a Soul attracted her to Thérèse of Lisieux's "little way".

On 28 February 1930, Betrone joined the Capuchin Poor Clares in Turin, taking the name Maria Consolata. (The Blessed Virgin Mary is venerated in Turin under the name of Consolata, i.e., Consoler of the Afflicted.) Betrone is known for her prayer: "Jesus, Mary, I love you: Save souls". Betrone spent her life attempting to bring to perfection this Very Little Way.

In 1995, Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini started the canonical process of beatification for Maria Consolata Betrone.

"A mystic is always placed in the context of his historical time...There is revealed a spirituality of reparation, perfectly in harmony with that desire for penance which animated the beginnings of her vocation."

On 6 April 2019 Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree recognising the heroic virtues of Betrone giving her the title Venerable. 6 April is also the date of her birth.