Saint of the Day – 2 January – Blessed Stephana de Quinzanis OP (1457-1530) Virgin, Dominican Tertiary, Mystic, Stigmatist, Stephana was particularly devoted to the Passion of our Lord and bore the Stigmata of His Passion. At the same time, she experienced spiritual aridity, as well as doubts and temptations. Stephana was well known for her service to the poor. Born in 1457 in Orzinuovi near Brescia in Italy and died on 2 January 1530 in Soncino near Crema in Italy. Also known as – Stefana Quinzani, Stephanie de Quinzanis. Patronage – of Theologians, Beatified on 14 December 1740 by Pope Benedict XIV (cultus confirmed). Her Body is interred at the Church of the Convent of the Dominican Tertiary Sisters Soncino, Cremona, Italy which Stephana had founded and some of her Relics are enshrined in her hometown Parish of .Orzinuovi.
She was born in 1457 in Brescia, Italy, to Lorenzo de Quinzanis and his wife, who were a poor and pious couple. Her father became a member of the Third Order of St Dominic while Stephana was very young. While accompanying him on visits to the Dominican Monastery in nearby Soncino, she met the stigmatist Friar, Blessed Matthew Carrieri, who instructed her in the Catechism.
Bl Matthew told her that she would be his spiritual heiress, a statement she did not understand for many years. She began receiving visions of Dominican Saints from age seven, at which point she made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. In 1464, Christ appeared to her, accompanied bythe Blessed Virgin Mary and Saints Dominic, Thomas Aquinas and Catherine of Siena, presenting her with a wedding ring, signifying her mystical marriage. Bl Matthew Carrieri died when Stephana was 14 years old and soon after he appeared to her in a vision and she herself received the Stigmata.
Stephana started to work as a servant but she continued in her formation in the Third Order and at age 15, made her profession at the Dominican Priory in Soncino. Her devotion to the poor and sick led her to found a community of Third Order Sisters there. She served as its first Prioress.
Her counsel was sought by many, including St Angela Merici, Foundress of the Ursulines, also Bl Augustine Fangi, as well as her fellow Dominican tertiary and mystic, Bl Osanna of Mantua. In 1497, Stephana participated in various stages of the Passion of Jesus Christ which was attested to by 21 witnesses in a still extant account, written in the vernacular and entitled “Relazione dell’Estasi della Passione – Report of the Ecstasy of the Passion.” Sources state that although Stephana was “plain” she had magnificent hair. Grudging herself this one beauty, she pulled it out by the roots.
Stephana had a particularly intense devotion to Saint Thomas Aquinas. In fact, to overcome the temptation of thoughts against purity, she once threw herself upon a cartload of thorns in imitation of the Doctor Angelicus. Exhausted from this penance, she prayed to Saint Thomas and, was girded by Angels, as St Thomas had been mystically girded with a cord, which they tied so tightly around her waist that she cried out in pain.
Although she had no formal theological training, she could discuss mystical theology at the most profound level. She is considered a patron saint for theologians. Stephana could read the hearts and minds of the people around her and had the gift of prophesy and of curing illnesses. She lived in a nearly continuous fast. She accurately predicted the date of her own death which occurred from natural causes on 2 January 1530.
Stephana’s tomb became a pilgrimage site almost immediately. Her intercession was often felt in the Convent she had founded, where the Sisters obtained both material and spiritual help through her intercession.
Her cult was popularised by the Dominicans Bartholomeo of Mantua and Battista of Salò but their Latin Vitae (Lives of the Blessed), have been lost and only a later Italian version which combined the two texts has survived.
AnaStpaul 
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