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This Friday’s missionary hero is Blessed Irene Stefani, a Consolata Missionary Sister.
Aurelia Mercede Stefani was born on August 22, 1891 in Anfo, Brescia, Italy, one of 12 children. When she was 15, her mother died, so she helped raise her two younger sisters and brother.
In June 1911, Aurelia joined the Consolata Missionary Sisters and became professed in the order on January 29, 1914 just prior to World War I. In the order, she took the name Irene. In December 1914, Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, the founder of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, gave her an assignment as missionary to Kenya, Africa. She arrived there in January 1915.
Although Sr. Irene taught catechism classes and taught at times in schools, her primary role was that of nurse. In fact, as a nurse in Kenya, she earned the nickname “Nyaatha” which means “mother of mercy.” During World War I, she nursed wounded soldiers and others. In August 1916, she was appointed to serve in the Red Cross in military hospitals in both Kenya and Tanzania.
When the war was over, Sr. Irene helped form aspirants in a new religious order, the Mary Immaculate Sisters, for two years, and then she went to the mission of Gikhondi in Kenya where she taught catechism and visited parishioners in the villages. There, she worked until her death.
In 1930, Sr. Irene contracted a disease she caught from treating a patient and grew very weak during the summer. Nevertheless, on October 20 of 1930, she insisted on visiting a patient with the plague, remaining with the patient for several hours. Eleven days later, on October 31, 1930, Sr. Irene died.
About the missionary life, Sr. Irene said, “The Missionary is the one who has a heart for loving, the hands for helping, the mouth for announcing. That is all!”
Sr. Irene was beatified in 2015. Blessed Irene Stefani’s feast day is October 31. She is a patron of Nyeri (Kenya) and the Consolata Missionaries.
