August 17, 2024 - Maria Concetta was born in Celico (Calabria) on 3 February 1894. Her father did not want to give her a religious education, so she received sacraments in secret, through her mother’s collaboration with the local priest, Don Vincenzo Lettieri. When she asked her father for permission to become a nun, he forced her to emigrate with him to Brazil, where she married Vito De Mauro on 25 December 1914 against her will.

On October 28, 1915 a daughter called Maria Carmela was born. One year later, Maria Concetta and her family returned to Italy and her husband died fighting in the First World War. Maria thus became a widow and was elected president of the Daughters of Mary, beginning a deep spiritual life that included mystical gifts (ecstasy, levitation and illness).

In 1927, Maria Concetta’s father forced her to leave his home with her daughter. On March 1930, Maria Carmela entered the Poor Clares of Airola (Benevento), but her mother was rejected. Instead, she opened a kindergarten in Monteoliveto with a friend, Sister Speranza Pettinato, who wrote a daily diary recording the mystical experiences of Maria Concetta.

On August 1, 1936, after Maria Concetta had received many mystical gifts (such as ecstasy, vision of saints such as Gemma Galgani, visits to Purgatory), she displayed stigmata on her hands, feet and side. Every Easter Friday, the wounds bled, until the stigmata on her hands and feet disappeared at the end of 1939. However, the wound on her side only disappeared a year before her death in 1952.

On February 17, 1947, some of the religious pictures that she possessed, in particular, a copy of the Shroud of Turin, bled for three hours. The same strange phenomenon occurred on 28 February and 4 March. More images of Christ also appeared in her house, all of which would bleed during the days of the Passion. Due to her extraordinary mystical experiences, everyone in Airola called her Sister Concetta, although she was a widow who had not taken religious vows.

Learn more about these events [here], [here] and [here].