Feast of Saint Marcella and Feast of Ludovica Albertoni

January 31 is celebrated as the feast of two great ladies. While the first, Saint Marcella, lived in the first century, the other, Ludovica Albertoni, belonged to the sixteenth century. Apart from sharing a common feast day, they both spent their lives in Rome and were deeply spiritual.

Feast of Saint Marcella

Marcella became a widow after only seven months of her marriage. Despite significant social pressure, she refused to remarry and was determined to spend her life in the service of God. Marcella converted her home into a place for the study of the Sacred Scriptures, where Saint Paula and other Roman women joined her in the pursuit of holiness. Saint Jerome called Marcella “the glory of the ladies of Rome.” Saint Marcella died on January 31, 410.

Feast of Ludovica Albertoni

Ludovica Albertoni, who lived in the sixteenth century, is considered a blessed person in Christianity. Also known as Louisa Albertoni, Blessed Ludovica was born to a rich and influential family. Married to Giacomo de Citara, she had three children. She sacrificed worldly comforts to care for the poor and the needy. In her journey of caring for the diseased, she became known as a miracle worker and was also said to be blessed with the gift of levitation. Ludovica Albertoni died of natural causes on January 31, 1533.

In the seventeenth century, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini made a sculpture of Beata Ludovica Albertoni (the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni). It was one of his last sculptures and shows Ludovica Albertoni on her deathbed. While the sculpture portrays her suffering in her death throes, it also exhibits her religious ecstasy as she waits for her union with Christ.