CLOWN FOR GOD

On this Gaudate or Rejoice Sunday, as my godson made his First Holy Communion ( a very moving experience for us all)  we present our next child saint, BLESSED CECILIA EUSEPI who was born in 1910.  She has been compared to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whose book The Story of a Soul she read as a young girl, and strove to follow the Little Flower's "little way." When she was already dying of tuberculosis, Cecilia's confessor instructed her to keep a diary of her own life, which was called Story of a Clown. She considered herself a "little clown" and wrote that it must be her extreme weakness that appealed to God.

She was born in Monte Romano, Italy, the youngest of eleven children and was sent to a convent school at age six. When she was twelve, she joined the Order of the Servants of Mary as a tertiary.

 At age thirteen she received permission from the bishop to join the order as a postulant. She studied at Rome. She had hoped to become a missionary, but her poor health prevented her from doing so and she returned home two years prior to her death. During her final illness her religious practice was a comfort and she was frequently visited by members of Catholic Action and seminarians and priests who sometimes asked her for her opinion on their homilies. She died singing hymns to the Virgin Mary, on the date that she had predicted she would die after having a dream about Thérèse of Lisieux. People said her funeral was like the feast day of a saint.