Geltrude Comensoli

Geltrude Caterina Comensoli (January 18, 1847 – February 18, 1903), also known as Mother Geltrude, is the Patroness of Youth, Val Camonica and Relic Custodians.

Her first attempt at religious life was curtailed by illness, and she took up work as a domestic. In 1882, with the encouragement of the Bishop of Bergamo, she founded the Institute of the Sacramentine Sisters.

Biography

Geltrude Comensoli was born in Bienno, Italy on January 18, 1847, the fifth of ten children, to Carlo and Anna Maria Milesi Comensoli, seven of whom died in infancy. Her father was a forge worker in the local ironworks and her mother was a seamstress.

Comensoli left her family in 1862 and joined the convent of the Sisters of Charity, founded by St. Bartolomea Capitanio in Lovere, Bergamo. She became seriously ill and was released from the Institute.

Supported by the new Bishop of Bergamo, Gaetano Guindani, and by her "Father and Superior", Francesco Spinelli, on December 15, 1882, Comensoli, together with two of her friends, began the Congregation of the Sacramentine Sisters of Bergamo. She took the name of Sister Geltrude of the Blessed Sacrament. When innumerable difficulties had been overcome, Bishop Rota, with a decree of September 8, 1891, gave canonical recognition to the Institute. On 1st November 1894 she opened a house of nuns in Castelnuovo Bocca d'Adda and in the same years in Lavagna, in the province of Lodi.

Comensoli and her sisters, advised by the Bishop Guindani, abandoned their first location and took refuge in Lodi. The Bishop of Lodi, welcomed them and gave them a house in Lavagna di Comazzo, which temporarily became the Mother House of the Institute. On April 26, 1961, the General Congregation of the then Congregation of Sacred Rites was held in the presence of Pope John XXIII, which declared her "Venerable".

There is a church dedicated to Saint Mother Gertrude Comensoli in Bienno, as well as a museum. She is the patroness saint of Margreid an der Weinstraße.

In May 1957, the first community settled in Villalta di San Raffaele. It is now the "Geltrude Comensoli Centre of Spirituality and Culture".