Imagine the saint who was a renown healer and a great mystic, who conversed with Jesus and Mary, and was supernaturally gifted by God for 47 years with a miraculous, luminous globe that stayed with her at all times, and in which, she could see nearly all things hidden, present, and in the future. Was this an ascetic monk, or an angelic nun? No, this was Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, an ordinary housewife and mother to seven children. Bl. Anna Maria Taigi lived a saintly life as an ordinary layperson with worldly responsibilities, a spouse and children. Bl. Anna Maria is a great reminder to us that the intimate life of the soul with God is not meant for just the religious and the consecrated, but for all people.
Anna Maria was born on May 29, 1769 in Siena, Italy. She did not have wealth or worldly means. As a young woman she married Dominic Taigi, a pious man but with a rough temper. One day while they were at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Anna Maria was overcome with an inspiration to renounce her worldliness. She had been given over to some vanities, such as clothing and jewelry, but now began a new life of self-renunciation. Her strong interior illumination showed the state of her soul with the effects of sin and its misery before God. With that, she embarked on a life of obedience, mortifications, submission, patience, humility and self-renunciation.
Anna Maria found many opportunities to exercise her spiritual discipline of patience and charity towards her husband and children. She considered marriage one of the greatest missions from Heaven. For 49 years she submitted herself before her husband, keeping peace with him, assuaging his temper, and providing all things for her family. She was the quintessential housewife. She always fulfilled first her duties as wife and as mother, managing the daily activities of her home; cooking and cleaning, and rearing the children, including teaching them to pray. She embraced a martyrdom of humility in submitting herself to all those around her. This was her vocation of extraordinary holiness in the ordinariness of marriage and motherhood.
Yet, even though Anna Maria imposed great penances and mortifications upon herself, she never demanded that from other people. In fact, she tried all the more to serve those around her, especially her family, trying to make them happy and comfortable. Despite her self-sacrifices, she showed great affability to everyone else, including a special compassion and charity for the poor and suffering. She sought above all else to serve God through serving her family and others.
She also devoted herself to the Church, especially to the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, attending Mass daily. She had a special devotion to our Blessed Mother, and to the Holy Trinity. On December 26, 1808, she entered the Third Order of the Most Holy Trinity as a layperson. She lived a sacramental life in the midst of the world.
Once, she heard the interior voice of Jesus tell her, “The greatest merit consists in being in the midst of the world and yet holding the world under one’s feet.” Jesus also told her, “Virtue consists above all in the mortification of one’s own will.”
The Blessed Virgin spoke to her as well. She told Anna Maria, “You must be devoted above all to doing His will and submitting your own constantly to his in the state of life to which it has pleased Him to call you; therein lies your special vocation.” True virtue is surrendering our will for the love of God in all things.
Jesus called Anna Maria to self-sacrifice and redemptive suffering, to be lived out in the midst of her marriage and motherhood. It was in her ordinary life that she progressed in sanctity and holiness. Blessed Anna Maria Taigi died June 9, 1837, with June 9th now her feast day. Years later, her body was exhumed and found to be uncorrupted. On May 30, 1920, Pope Benedict XV, beatified Anne Maria by declaring her “Blessed,” one-step from official canonization. She is now the patron saint of housewives, mothers, and victims of verbal and spousal abuse.
Blessed Anna Maria Taigi is a saint for the modern age. She reminds us that no matter what our state in life or vocation, layperson, single, married, children or no children, God calls us to renounce our self-love and self-will, abandoning it to the will of God, by submitting it for the good of others, and in this way, strive to be saints within the world.