Blessed Emily was born in Vercelli in northern Italy to a prosperous family. After the death of her mother, she became a special support and comfort to her father, who hoped to arrange for her successful marriage. When she was sixteen, however, she announced that she was determined to take religious vows. Though her father objected, she overcame him with her persistence, and eventually he agreed to build her a convent. There, at twenty, she became prioress in what was possibly the first convent of Dominican tertiaries. Under the direction of local Dominican friars, the sisters combined prayer and charitable works.
Mother Emily had a special devotion to the Eucharist, at a time when frequent communion was not encouraged. One Christmas Eve as she was nursing three sisters in the infirmary, she excused herself briefly to receive communion. Returning, she proclaimed, “I am not alone, Sisters. See, I bring Jesus to bless you.” At that moment the three sisters were cured and rose from their beds.
She died on May 3, 1314, and was beatified in 1769. Her feast is August 19.
“In directing her sisters she laid particular stress on ‘knowing what you were after’ and on the purity of that intention: otherwise, she would say, one is like a person going to market who does not know with whom to deal or what price to pay; and God’s glory must be the last end of all their actions and the motive of their religious obedience.” —Butler’s Lives of the Saints
