IFTTT Autopost 
Sandra Sabattini was born on August 19, 1961 in Rimini, Italy, the first of two children. Her brother Raffaele followed and became a medical doctor.
The Sabattini family moved to Rimini in 1965 to live with her priest uncle, Fr. Giuseppe Bonini, pastor of the parish of San Girolamo.
Even as a child, Sandra was known to be drawn to the spiritual life. For example, she began keeping a spiritual journal from the age of ten, and as a child, she carried a one-decade rosary with her. A camp leader once noted that Sandra sometimes entered the chapel alone, a doll in one hand and her rosary in the other, and knelt in the last pew with her head bowed. After visiting the Blessed Sacrament for a time, she would rejoin her group. Others report that when she was in elementary school, people would sometimes see Sandra visiting the Blessed Sacrament even in the middle of the night.
Her priest uncle also noted that often she rose early in the morning to be able to meditate before the Blessed Sacrament before others arrived for Mass.
Sandra was an excellent student academically, and she also liked paining, playing the piano, and running track.
When she was 12 years old, Sandra met Fr. Oreste Benzi and the Pope John XXIII Community he founded to provide service to the poorest and weakest of society. When she was 13, Sandra took a trip to the mountains with teens of the group who were there to assist people with disabilities. From that experience, she became committed to serving others by volunteering with the John XXIII Community and using her own savings.
When she was 17, Sandra met Guido Rossi at Carnivale, and the two eventually became engaged to get married. They were amazed and delighted to learn that they both shared the same desire to become physicians and missionaries in an African country. Initially, Sandra had trouble deciding if she should go to Africa before medical school or afterwards, but her father encouraged her to go to school first, and then consider the missionary life abroad.
In the summer of 1982, as a 21-year-old medical student, Sandra volunteered at a community for drug addicts. She wrote how everything she did to help others was to serve the Lord.
On the morning of April 29, 1984, however, Guido, Sandra, and Sandra’s friend Elio decided to go to a meeting of the association. When they got out of the car, both Sandra and Elio were struck by a passing car. Sandra went into a coma, and on May 2, she died at Bellaria Hospital in Bologna at the age of 22.
Sandra was beatified on October 24, 2021. Blessed Sandra’s feast day is May 4, and she is a patron of youth.
05Blessed Sandra’s former fiancé, Guido, got married, had two children, and became a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church.
