St. Elena Guerra (Blessed Elena Guerra), Apostle of the Holy Spirit

Who was St. Elena Guerra?

St. Elena Guerra was a teacher, writer and foundress from Lucca in Tuscany who asked the pope to set the whole Church praying to the Holy Spirit, and he listened. For sixty-five years Catholics knew her as Blessed Elena Guerra. On October 20, 2024, Pope Francis canonized her in St. Peter's Square, naming her among "religious fervent with missionary zeal."

She is also the teacher of a better-known saint: the young Gemma Galgani went to her school.

The life of St. Elena Guerra

A girl of Lucca

Elena was born in Lucca on June 23, 1835. Lucca's own saint, the household servant St. Zita, would give her name to Elena's life's work.

A school and a community

In December 1872 she opened a school for girls in Lucca under the patronage of St. Zita. Ten years later, in 1882, the women who taught with her began to live together as a religious community. These were the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, still often called the Sisters of St. Zita. Her aim was to form girls in faith and learning, and to make the Holy Spirit known and loved.

Among her pupils was a motherless little girl named Gemma Galgani, who would become one of the great mystics of modern Italy.

Letters to the pope

Elena believed the Church had forgotten the Holy Spirit. Through a priest she trusted, Msgr. Giovanni Volpi, she wrote to Pope Leo XIII and begged him to have bishops and parish priests prepare the faithful for Pentecost with a novena, as the apostles had waited and prayed with Mary in the upper room.

The pope answered. In May 1895, in the brief Provida Matris Caritate, he asked bishops everywhere to keep the novena before Pentecost. He invited Catholics to pray, "after the example of the Virgin Mother and the holy Apostles," with one heart and unusual fervor, repeating the old prayer: "Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth" (our translation from the Vatican's Italian text). He attached indulgences to nine days of prayer to the Holy Spirit, prayed in church or at home. Elena wrote again, telling him of her "Permanent Cenacle," an association of prayer to the Holy Spirit. On May 9, 1897, Leo XIII issued an entire encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Divinum illud munus, and made the novena a yearly duty of the whole Church:

Wherefore, We decree and command that throughout the whole Catholic Church, this year and in every subsequent year, a Novena shall take place before Whit-Sunday, in all parish churches, and also, if the local Ordinaries think fit, in other churches and oratories.

That novena, still prayed in many parishes in the days before Pentecost, owes a great deal to a sister in Lucca.

Her last years

She died in Lucca on April 11, 1914. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints records her last word: "Credo!" ("I believe!"). In 1928 her body was moved to the chapel of her Oblates in Lucca.

The miracles of St. Elena Guerra

John XXIII beatified her on April 26, 1959. It was the first beatification of his pontificate.

The miracle for her canonization is approved. In 2010 a man in Brazil fell about six meters (twenty feet) from a tree. He suffered a severe head injury, was twice placed under the protocol for brain death, and developed pneumonia and hepatitis. A novena was prayed asking Elena's intercession. His neurological condition improved, and he made a rapid, complete and lasting recovery. The Holy See's medical board found it scientifically inexplicable in June 2023, and Pope Francis confirmed the miracle on April 13, 2024.

Symbols of St. Elena Guerra in art

• Black habit and veil: the dress of her Oblates.
• Dove of the Holy Spirit: the center of her spiritual life and her mission.
• Pen and letters: her letters to Leo XIII, and her many writings on the Holy Spirit.
• Crucifix: the old illustration of her school on this page shows her holding up a crucifix before her pupils.

She lived in the age of photography, so her portraits show a real face: a serious, kind woman framed by a white band and a black veil.

Feast day and where she is honored

Her feast is April 11. Her body rests in Lucca, in the chapel of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit at the Church of Sant'Agostino. The Oblates continue her work of education. See other saints of April on our feast days page.

Praying with St. Elena Guerra

The prayer St. Elena worked hardest to spread is the Church's own: the novena to the Holy Spirit before Pentecost. The best way to honor her is to keep it, with the ancient hymns Veni Creator Spiritus and Veni Sancte Spiritus. You will find a traditional prayer to the Holy Spirit on our prayers page.

Let us ask St. Elena Guerra to pray for teachers and for the young, and for a new Pentecost in our parishes and our homes.