Cecilia Eusepi Saint
Blessed Cecilia Eusepi (February 17, 1910 - October 1, 1928) was an Italian teenager who has been beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.She has been compared to 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, Eusepi's confessor instructed her to keep a diary of her own life, which was called Story of a Clown. Eusepi considered herself a "little clown" and wrote that it must be her extreme weakness that appealed to God.Eusepi 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, Pistoia and Zara. She had hoped to become a missionary, but her poor health prevented her from doing so and she returned home to Nepi 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.Eusepi was declared venerable by John Paul II'>Pope John Paul II on June 1, 1987, and beatified on June 17, 2012.