Veronica Barone
Febronia Barone, better known by the name of Suora Veronica Barone or L’Estatica Cappuccina, was born on 16 December 1856 in Vizzini, a small town in the province of Catania (Sicily).
From her childhood she manifested extraordinary gifts. At the age of five, the Christ Child appeared to her in a vision. He had a lily in his right hand and the crown of thorns in the left, prophesying her future of chastity and suffering. Illness, visions of saints and divine healings followed. On 3 October 1861, having fallen ill several days earlier (leprosy), St Veronica Giuliani (stigmatized Capuchin saint) cured her in a mystical way. Ten years later, St Veronica and St Francis saved her again from what doctors declared was her imminent death.
At the age of seven, Veronica had her first ecstatic episode in church. The Capuchin, Giuseppe Sammartino, became her spiritual father. Ecstasy and visions alternated with illnesses, inedia and her apparent death at various times. These extraordinary events were observed by local religious men who, after an investigation and experiments excluded the possibility of illness (initially they assumed she was in a trance or was having an epileptic-hysterical seizure) or fraud.
The descriptions of her stigmata and their appearance are not clear. On Fridays, especially during Lent, she felt the pain of the Crucifixion between midday and 3 p.m. She would start meditating, fall into ecstasy and reproduce scenes of the Via Crucis, holding her arms and feet in a similar position to the crucified Christ. Strange black marks were visible on her hands, but it appears that they did not emit blood. Instead, her eyes, ears, nose and head (crown of thorns) would bleed. These phenomena were reported on 13 September 1869 (vision of Christ crucified) and on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1871, when she remained in bed for two days suffering the Passion.
On 9 July 1871, she enrolled in the Third Order of Saint Francis. Other supernatural gifts were added: mystical marriage (22 January 1876) and communion (8 April 1876), demonic attacks, liberation of the souls in Purgatory, as well as prophetic and healing powers. She also foretold her own death, which occurred on 5 January 1878.
In November 1907, the first stage of the diocesan process for beatification was held in Vizzini. Those who appeared before the religious authorities testified about many miracles. Recently, the association of the Friends of Sister Veronica Barone was founded to promote her worship and open a new phase in her beatification process.
Puglisi Lo Magno, Giuliano, 1901. Brevi cenni sulla vita di suor Veronica Barone, terziaria francescana. Ragusa: Vinc. Criscione Tip. Edit.; La Scala Da Mazzarino, Pio, 1906. L’estatica cappuccina: suor Veronica Barone, 1856-1878. Catania: Stabilimento tipografico industriale; Scribanti, Pio Giuseppe, 1913. L’adoratrice di Gesù sacramentato, suor Veronica Barone da Vizzini, terziaria cappuccini (1856-1878). Rome: Desclee e C.; Da Vizzini, Beniamino, 1936. Il volo d'un angelo: Suor Veronica Barone da Vizzini (16 dicembre 1856 - 5 gennaio 1878). Turin: L.I.C.E. R. Berruti & C.; Da Castelbuono, Raimondo, 1976. Suor Veronica Barone terziaria francescana, 1856-1878: breve schizzo d'una vita crocifissa. Vizzini: Convento dei Frati Cappuccini.