A rib of Mother Elisa for the veneration of the faithful.
Mother Elisa Martinez on 16 November 1955 in Milan, at the Nursing Home “Città di Milano” was hospitalized and subjected to a very delicate surgery of “left thoratocomy, left adrenalectomy by transdiaphragmatic route, left splanchnicectomy and resection of the left thoracic sympathetic (T7 at T12) by transpleural route”. She had just passed the milestone of the age of fifty when her already tested health took a further breakdown, so much so that she even feared for her life. During the operation she had a rib removed and it has been kept in all these years by her Sisters with great care. On the occasion of her beatification, a special reliquary was created for the conservation of the rib.
On that occasion, for the hoped-for healing of the Servant of God, prayers were raised from many quarters and certificates of affection and esteem for her arrived. Mother Elisa, on the way back, in the Circular Letter of March 1, 1956, will recount with emotion the blessing received from the Holy Father Pius XII: “The Holy Father wanted to know from Mother Teresa about my illness, he sent me three times a special your Blessing, your skullcap to comfort me during the operation. Never as in those days have I felt how great the love of the Pope is and how strong the thought of him is for a religious soul. In the midst of the most atrocious suffering, the thought of the Pope, who despite our unworthiness and smallness. He had a particular thought for us, it is a comfort that has no comparison except in those who come directly from the faith”.
