St. Francesco Spinelli

Who was St. Francesco Spinelli?

St. Francesco Spinelli was a priest from Lombardy who wanted women to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament day and night, and then serve, with that same love, the poor whom nobody would take in. He founded the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, lost everything in a bankruptcy he did not cause, and started over in a small town near Cremona without a word against the people who had ruined him. We keep his feast on February 6.

A servant's son in Milan

Francesco was born in Milan on April 14, 1853, in the house of the Stanga marquises, where his parents, who came from Verdello near Bergamo, were in service. He was baptized the next day in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. Because his mother was often ill, he spent his first three years with a wet nurse in Verdello. His parents moved often with the Stanga family, so at six he went to boarding school in Cremona, and in 1863 to the respected Sant'Alessandro college in Bergamo, a real sacrifice for a family of servants.

As a boy he went with his mother to visit the poor and the children of the neighborhood. With the help of a Jesuit, Father Giovanni Maj, he recognized a call to the priesthood. He entered the seminary of Bergamo as a day student because of his poor health and was ordained on October 17, 1875, at only twenty-two.

A vision at St. Mary Major

That same year, a jubilee year, he went on pilgrimage to Rome with his diocese. In the Basilica of St. Mary Major he knelt before the relics of the Holy Crib of the Child Jesus, and an idea took hold of him: a community of young women who would adore the Lord in the Eucharist and draw from that adoration the love to serve the poorest. Years later he wrote:

Mi sono inginocchiato, piansi, pregai e sognai uno stuolo di vergini che avrebbero adorato Gesù in Sacramento.

"I knelt, I wept, I prayed, and I dreamed of a host of virgins who would adore Jesus in the Sacrament."

The first adorers

Back in Bergamo he taught religion, preached, heard the confessions of sisters and worked with Father Luigi Palazzolo. Then he met Caterina Comensoli, who shared the same desire. On December 15, 1882, he, Caterina and three young women began the Institute of the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament with an hour of adoration before a picture of the Sacred Heart. Within three years there were about a hundred sisters and some two hundred people in their care.

Ruin and forgiveness

The good years did not last. He was drawn into costly purchases and financial dealings, some of them pushed on him by people who acted dishonestly, and when the debts came due, those who should have helped him left him alone. On January 18, 1889, he was declared bankrupt and removed from his institute and from the diocese of Bergamo. The sisters who stayed in Bergamo went on as the Sacramentine and came to regard Caterina, now St. Geltrude Comensoli, as their foundress.

He took refuge with a small community of his sisters at Rivolta d'Adda, in the diocese of Cremona, and asked Bishop Geremia Bonomelli to receive him. The bishop hesitated, then was won over by the humility of the poor priest and accepted him in March 1889. On November 10, 1897, Bonomelli approved the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament as a diocesan institute.

"In the unfortunate he saw Jesus Christ"

For more than twenty years he led the reborn institute. The sisters adored the Eucharist and cared for children, the sick and people with disabilities whom no one else would take. In his testament he wrote that he "negli infelici ravvisò Gesù Cristo e nei nemici i cari di speciale amore": in the unfortunate he recognized Jesus Christ, and in his enemies those dear to him with a special love.

He died peacefully on February 6, 1913, surrounded by his sisters. On May 14, 1924, his remains were moved from the Rivolta cemetery to the church of the motherhouse.

Miracles and canonization

• Approved: a healing of June 21, 1947, investigated in Brescia, was recognized as a miracle in 1992. John Paul II beatified him at the shrine of Santa Maria del Fonte in Caravaggio on June 21, 1992.
• Approved: the healing of a child in Kinshasa in 2007 from severe post-traumatic hemorrhagic shock, recognized by the cardinals and bishops on February 27, 2018.

Pope Francis canonized him in St. Peter's Square on October 14, 2018, with St. Paul VI, St. Óscar Romero and St. Nunzio Sulprizio. The pope named him among saints who lived the Gospel "without lukewarmness, without calculation."

Symbols of St. Francesco Spinelli in art

He lived in the age of photography, so his pictures follow his photographs: a white-haired priest with a broad forehead in a black cassock. Look for:

• A monstrance: perpetual adoration, the heart of his institute.
• The Sacred Heart: the picture before which the first adorers prayed in 1882.
• Sisters in prayer or the sick and disabled around him: the two halves of his sisters' life.

Feast day and prayer

We keep the feast of St. Francesco Spinelli on February 6. His sisters serve today in Italy, Argentina, the Congo, Senegal and Cameroon. See the feast day calendar for the other saints of February.

We have not found an approved English prayer to St. Francesco Spinelli. Let us kneel before the Blessed Sacrament as he did, and ask him to pray for all who adore, for the poor whom no one wants, and for anyone who must forgive a betrayal. St. Francesco Spinelli, pray for us.