St. Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727) is considered one of the most extraordinary mystics in the history of Christianity. A Poor Clare nun, she was a stigmatic who offered her many mystical sufferings for others. After fifty years in a monastery, where she served as abbess and novice directress, she ended her life essentially divinized. And yet, even though numerous popes have extolled her virtues, St. Veronica Giuliani is little known outside her native region and Capuchin Order. Now, for the first time ever, a compendium of her Diary has been translated into English. While all saints are exceptional, St. Veronica Giuliani is a case apart. The sheer number of charisms she was graced with-which included raptures, locutions, visions, diabolical struggles, and the stigmata (to note a few)-are unparalleled even among the saints. Padre Pio himself, also a Capuchin, kept an icon of her in his cell, and considered her his patroness. When she was seventeen, St. Veronica entered a Capuchin Poor Clare monastery. There, she longed to suffer more and more with Christ. During moments of rapture, she was given the carrying of the cross, the instruments of the Passion on her heart, to drink from the chalice of bitterness, the crowning of thorns, the transverberation of her heart, and the reception of the spousal ring. She received these mystically, though they manifested as physical wounds on her body. The climax took place in 1697, when Veronica received the stigmata-the wounds of Christ-on her hands, feet, and side. For over thirty years, St. Veronica Giuliani meticulously recorded her life story and extraordinary spiritual experiences. Three months before she died, she had filled 11,000 pages. In her Diary, at times, she comes across as the novice mistress or abbess guiding the sisters. Other times, she reveals messages given to her by Christ. In other entries, she graphically describes the mystical sufferings she endured. In her life and Diary, ultimately what is revealed is the beauty of the Gospel and a woman madly in love with God-"set on fire," in her words. Before she died, she told her sisters to tell everyone that "Love has been found." This is the message of St. Veronica Giuliani that informs her writing. May the fiery love that St. Veronica Giuliani found illuminate your heart as you begin reading her Diary.
Statements made by Popes, Cardinals, and Theologians:
"St. Veronica Giuliani is not [just] a Saint, but a giant of Saintliness." (Bl. Pope Pius IX) "She is such a great luminary of Saintliness that in and of herself, she would be enough to illustrate the Church, in contempt of the mockery and slander of the most superb and biting philosophy of the unbelievers." (Pope Pius VII) "She was endowed with such extraordinary graces that only the Mother of God was more ornate." (Pope Leo XIII) "What the virgin Veronica wrote, certainly with the help of God, will be of great profit to those who study to acquire Christian perfection." (St. Pope Pius X) "St Veronica Giuliani invites us to develop, in our Christian life, our union with the Lord in living for others, abandoning ourselves to his will with complete and total trust, and the union with the Church, the Bride of Christ." (Pope Benedict XVI) "The extraordinary favors granted by God to Veronica were explained by her with that clarity and exactness of expression which render the Diary 'one of the most classic treatises on sacred mysticism.'" (Card. Lucido M. Parocchi, Secretary of the Holy Office) "The Diary is a catechesis, a doctorate, a permanent mission, which the Vatican II Church cannot and must not ignore, if it wants to unleash all its energies of renewal." (Card. Pietro Palazzini) "She is the most sublime and necessary subject of study that has been produced after the Gospel." (M.F. Benjamin Dausse, Académie des Sciences, Paris)