Maria Gabriella Sagheddu

Maria Sagheddu (17 March 1914 – 23 April 1939) - in religious Maria Gabriella - was an Italian Catholic professed religious and a professed member from the Trappists.

Sagheddu was beatified in Rome in 1983.

Beatification The beatification cause opened in Frascati in 1958 and she became titled as a Servant of God though the formal introduction of the cause came under Pope Paul VI on 15 July 1965. Pope John Paul II named her as Venerable on 4 May 1981 after confirming her life of heroic virtue. Sagheddu was beatified on 25 January 1983 in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which was the same observance which motivated her decision to offer her life to God. In doing so John Paul II both affirmed the holiness of her actions and set her up as a role model for Christians to follow more so as it related to ecumenism and ecumenical efforts.

After Sagheddu's death it was noted that in her Bible the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John had become yellowed and worn from being often read. It is in this chapter that Jesus appeals to the God the Father on behalf of his disciples. But of particular significance are verses 11 and 21 in which Jesus prays "that they may be one, as we also are" (John 17:11) and "that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 17:21).

The current postulator for the cause is the Trappist nun Augusta Tescari.