Our Patron Saint

    Francesca Bussa di Leoni was born into the Roman aristocracy in 1384.  From an early age her life was marked by prayer and self-denial as well as by great compassion for the sufferings of others.
She wanted to become a religious, but, at her parents’ insistence, she married Lorenzo de’ Ponziani when she was thirteen.  She and Lorenzo were married for forty years without a quarrel, and they had several children, two of whom at least died young.  Civil war led to the confiscation of their property, and from 1409 to 1414 Lorenzo was forced to live in exile.  Frances was left to raise their children alone; this she did while continuing to visit the poor and the sick.  When Lorenzo returned, he was a broken man, and until his death twenty-two years later Frances cheerfully cared for him.
Several other Roman ladies shared her commitment to prayer, self-denial, and works of charity, and in 1425 she organized them into a society.  Eight years later she founded a religious community in association with the Benedictine monks of Monte Oliveto.  In 1436 Lorenzo died, and Frances entered the community herself.
During her lifetime, both as a wife and as a religious, Frances was known to be a model Christian; for the last twenty-three years of her life she was guided by her guardian angel and the Archangel Michael who were visible only to her.  Acclaimed a saint by the people of Rome immediately after her death in 1440, she was formally canonized in 1608.  Her feast day is March 9th.