A Consolata Missionary of the first hour, Aurelia Mercede Stefani was born in Anfo (BS) on August 22, 1891, the fifth of twelve children. After the premature death of her mother, she helped care for her younger brothers and sisters. Already at the age of 13 she had decided to consecrate herself to God.
She entered the nascent Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, founded in Turin by Canon Giuseppe Allamano in 1910. The twenty-seventh “recruit” of the new missionary Congregation, she entered in 1911 receiving the name of Irene.
She reached the mission in Kenya in 1914 and during the First World War she worked as a Red Cross nurse in the military hospitals of Kenya and Tanzania, where she distinguished herself for her heroic charity and her zeal for the salvation of souls: she gave 3000 Baptisms in articulo mortis.
After the war, Sister Irene lived her mission of announcing the Gospel and serving charity in Gekondi, among the Kikuyu people, who “baptized” her Nyaatha: mother all mercy.
In 1930 she offered her life to the Lord for the missions. She contracted a virus while assisting a plague patient and died on October 31.
She was born in Anfo
Fifth of 12 brothers and sisters, she was baptized with the name Aurelia Mercede.
The mission in the heart
She enters the Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters and receives the name of Irene. She lives intensely the time of formation to become a missionary nun.
Departure for Africa
Sister Irene leaves for Kenya on the last ship bound for Africa before the seas are closed due to the world war.
In military hospitals
With other Sisters she works as a Red Cross nurse in military hospitals in Kenya and Tanzania, where local porters live in extreme conditions.
In Gekondi
He lived a decade of tireless apostolate, of announcing the Gospel and of charity.
She offers her life
During a plague epidemic, Sister Irene contracts the disease while assisting a school teacher. A few weeks earlier, she had offered her "poor life" for the mission.
The miracle attributed to the intercession of Sister Irene
happened in Nipepe, Mozambique, during the civil war.
The community, forced to remain in the parish church to defend themselves from a guerrilla attack,
drank for days at the water of the baptismal font, which did not run dry.
Called by the Holy Spirit to share in the Charism, God’s gift to Father Founder, we offer our life to Christ forever, in the mission ad gentes,
that is, to non-Christians,
for the proclamation of salvation and consolation.
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