Maria Eletta di Gesù

She was born in Terni, Italy, on the 28^th of January 1605, the third daughter of the nobleman Alessandro.

At the age of twenty-one, together with her sister Lucia, she entered the recently founded monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in her city.

On the 5^th of September 1629, she left Terni together with another nun. She was, in fact, on her way to the foundation of the Carmel of Vienna, of which – although very young – she would be become prioress from 1638 to 1642, the year in which she was entrusted with the foundation of the monastery of Graz, where she lived her happiest and most spiritually fruitful years.

In 1656, she was given the task of founding a third monastery in Prague. A true daughter of Saint Teresa of Avila, she obeyed with enthusiasm and thus contributed to promoting a true spiritual awakening of the Bohemian capital.

It was in Prague that Mother Maria Eletta closed her earthly journey on January the 11^th, 1663, surrounded by the love and veneration of her spiritual daughters who guarded her incorrupt body, still today an object of veneration.

The Diocesan Inquiry on her “life, virtue and reputation of holiness” closed on 28 June 2007. On the 13^th of November 2009, the decree of validity was granted.