From Malta, for the Jubilee of Healthcare Workers, a
Pilgrimage of Compassion and Hope has departed
Jubilee Trip to Rome – 5-6 April 2025
On the anniversary of the canonisation of Saint Augustine Pietrantoni, Patron Saint of Nurses, Rome 18 April 1999, a group of healthcare workers from the Karin Grech and Mater Dei hospitals wanted to share the grace of having been able to participate in the Jubilee of the Sick and Healthcare Workers, which took place in Rome on 5 and 6 April 2025, as part of the Holy Year of the Jubilee of Hope:
‘It was a pilgrimage of faith and belief, but also a moment of renewal and gratitude for all of us.
We were welcomed at the General House of the Sisters of Charity, where we were able to experience the genuine hospitality of the congregation founded by Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret.
During our time in the capital, we visited the wonderful city of Rome, with its sacred and historical sites.
One of the most intense moments was passing through the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica, a gesture full of meaning, an opening to forgiveness and to God’s grace.
Another moving stop was the visit to Naples, to the Regina Coeli convent, where Saint Jeanne-Antide lived the last years of her life. Walking through the convent, and thanks to the passionate explanation of Sister Maria Franca, we felt closer to her spirit of charity and dedication towards the sick and the most needy.
The high point of the pilgrimage was the celebration of Mass in St Peter’s Square, in the presence of over 20,000 faithful. To our great surprise and joy, Pope Francis came out to personally greet the crowd.
In his address to healthcare workers, he reminded us that our service is much more than a profession: it is a daily opportunity to rediscover that life is a gift. He invited us to welcome the presence of the sick as a gift capable of warming the heart, purifying it of all that is not love, and renewing it with the tender and ardent flame of compassion.
This jubilee pilgrimage has touched us deeply and brought us back to the essence of our vocation. We have returned home renewed in spirit, more determined than ever to serve with love, tenderness and hope.
Sister Ramona, Svetlana, Jamie Lee, Jacqueline, Tano, Alexandra and Bridgette.
Sister Agostina Pietrantoni
was canonised by John Paul II in St Peter’s Square on 18 April 1999, during the Year of the Father, in preparation for the Jubilee of 2000: ready for any sacrifice, a heroic witness of charity, she paid with her blood the price of fidelity to Love.
We entrust the sick and healthcare workers, and all those who assist suffering people, to her intercession.
After completing her novitiate with the Sisters of Charity, Livia Pietrantoni, with the new name of Agostina, in 1888 was sent to the Roman hospital Santo Spirito, glorious for its 700-year history and defined as the gymnasium of Christian charity.
Sister Agostina made her personal contribution following in the footsteps of the saints who had preceded her, including Carlo Borromeo, Giuseppe Calasanzio, Giovanni Bosco, Camillo De Lellis… and in that place of pain she expressed charity to the point of heroism.
The climate in the hospital was hostile to religion: the Roman Question, with its anticlericalism, poisoned the atmosphere: the Capuchin Fathers were expelled, the Crucifix and every other religious symbol was banned. They also wanted to remove the Sisters, but they feared they would become unpopular: they made their life impossible and they were forbidden to speak of God.
However, Sister Agostina doesn’t need her mouth to shout God and no gag can prevent her life from proclaiming the Gospel! Her service, first in the children’s ward and then, after a deadly infection from which she miraculously recovered, in the tuberculosis ward of despair and death, expressed her total dedication and extraordinary attention to each patient, especially the most difficult, violent and obscene, like Romanelli.
When, after yet another attack on the women in the laundry, the Director expels Romanelli from the hospital, his anger is looking for a target and the defenceless Sister Agostina is the intended victim. ‘I’ll kill you with my own hands!’, ‘Sister Agostina, you only have a month to live! ‘ are the threatening messages he sends her on several occasions, in the form of notes.
Romanelli is not joking at all, but neither does Sister Agostina set limits to her generosity for the Lord. She is therefore ready to pay, with her life, the price of love, without running away, without accusations. When Romanelli surprised her and struck her cruelly, without escape, on 13 November 1894, the only words that came from her lips were an invocation to the Virgin and words of forgiveness.
She was not yet thirty years old.
She was beatified on 13 November 1972 by Pope Paul VI.
The Italian Episcopal Conference declared her Patron Saint of Nurses in Italy on 20 May 2003.
