A LIFE GIVEN WITH JOY

SERVANT of GOD MARIACRISTINA CELLA MOCELLIN was born in Monza, Italy on August 18, 1969, the first child of Giuseppe Cella and Caterina Smaniotto, followed by her brother Daniele. 

While attending the "Regina Pacis" linguistic high school in Cusano Milanino, she began to consider the possibility of joining the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joan Antide Thouret, whom she knew in the parish. In the summer of 1985, on vacation in Valstagna (Vicenza), she met Carlo Mocellin. Their friendship soon became love.   

She recognized that her true vocation was to form a "truly Christian" family, and in August 1986, she and Carlo became engaged.

Just a year after the engagement, a tumor appeared on her left thigh, but the couple did not let this hinder their plans. Her treatments were successful, so on February 2, 1991 they were married. The new family established their residence in Carpanè, in the Veneto region, the area where Carlos came from.  Ten months later  their son,  Francesco was born,  followed a year and a half  later by their daughter Lucia.

In the autumn of 1993,  while pregnant with her third child, Maria Cristina was again attacked by the tumor, at the same point where it occurred five years earlier. She and Carlo decided that she would have surgery, but not do the chemotherapy, in order to save the life of their unborn child.  After the birth of Riccardo, on 28 July,  she undertook medical treatments, which were not as successful as before. 

Due to the delay of treatment, the tumor proved fatal. The words of her diary, a sign of constant and progressive growth in faith and humanity, exude an irrepressible love, making  her last days serene.. 

Preparing to accept, once again, God's will, the young mother prepared to leave her loved ones , which she did October 22, 1995, in Bassano del Grappa.

Her testimony, in particular through a letter she had left for Riccardo, began to circulate among the faithful and led to the opening, in the diocese of Padua, of the canonical process for ascertaining his heroic virtues. 

Certainly this brave young woman followed in the footsteps of another great Italian saint, Gianna Molla, who gave her own life that her child would have life.