Consolata Betrone

Life

Pierina Lorenzina Giovanna Betrone was the second of six daughters from her father Pietro Betrone and Giuseppina Nirino’s second marriage. Her family first ran a bakery in Saluzzo, near Cuneo, and later managed a restaurant in Airasco, outside Turin. She became a member of the Company of the Daughters of Mary at Turin’s San Massimo parish. A visit to Don Bosco’s tomb in Valsalice pushed her toward religious life, and reading The Story of a Soul drew her to Thérèse of Lisieux’s “little way.”

She joined the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians on 26 January 1925 but left after just over a year, feeling it was not for her. She then signed up with the Italian League of Teaching and got involved in local Catholic Action. She tried a community started by Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo, but by August 1928 she was back with her family, still working with Catholic Action. A superior from the Sisters of the Good Shepherd of Angers recommended she consider the Franciscans.

On 28 February 1930, she entered the Capuchin Poor Clares in Turin, taking the name Maria Consolata—a title for the Virgin Mary as Consoler of the Afflicted, venerated in Turin. She made her simple profession on 6 April 1931 and her solemn profession on 8 April 1934. Her duties included cooking and working as a concierge, and she reportedly had interior conversations with Christ. In 1938 she moved to the new monastery in Moriondo, near Testona and the Turin-Genoa railway, where she served as secretary and nurse until 1945. Her confessor, Fr. Lorenzo Sales, a Consolata Missionary, urged her to write a short autobiography. On 25 October 1945 she was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and sent to a sanatorium. When her condition became terminal, she returned to the Moriondo monastery on 3 July 1946. She died there on 18 July 1946 at age forty-three. Her remains are kept at the monastery of the Sacred Heart in Moncalieri. After her death, Fr. Sales wrote Jesus Appeals to the World based on her reported messages. Betrone is remembered for her prayer “Jesus, Mary, I love you: Save souls,” and she devoted her life to perfecting what she called the Very Little Way.