Rorate Caeli

The Beauty of our Faith in One Picture

"Caterina Maria Sudrio was the youngest of ten children, born in Benevento, [Campania, Italy,] on June 1, 2006.

When she was just 4, she asked Father Pietro Luongo, FI, in a serious tone that she wanted to confess. She had been baptized by Father Stefano Manelli, [founder of the Franciscans of the Immaculate,] and from him she received First Communion when she was 5 and a half, on Christmas Day, 2011, in a Holy Mass according to the Tridentine Rite [Traditional Roman Rite or Extraordinary Form]. Every single evening, at 7:20 p.m., she had to go, cost what may, to Eucharistic Benediction at the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel. She consciously offered up her illness for Father Stefano Manelli and for the institute of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, Friars and Sisters.

She knew she would not be healed.


Her favorite film from her most tender age was "Miracle of Marcelino" [Marcelino Pan y Vino].

Her favorite song: "I Prefer Heaven" [Preferisco il Paradiso], heard in the film on Saint Philip Neri.

She never, I repeat never, complained about her disease (pinealoblastoma). When she was asked how she was doing, she answered always, "well," and with a smile.

She always repeated, from the moment when she learned how to say it, that Jesus has come to bring joy.

I can say that the good God raised her for Himself, and took her on Mary's day [Saturday], on the feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, Saturday, July 26, 2014, at the age of 8.

Consummatum est!
Her motto was: When we don't have love, we grow up with difficulty!

[In the picture, at the beginning of her illness, in September 2012.]"

[A picture of when she met Pope Francis. Source: her family's letter translated above was voluntarily made public, and has appeared in several places, including Chiesa e post concilio and Le Forum Catholique.]