On the day she first came to our Home here in Enfield she became “our” Maria. As a young nurse working for the Little Sisters of the Poor in Denver, Colorado, Maria Ciaravino was bringing us a new Resident who was relocating here to St. Joseph’s. We saw Maria’s kind attentiveness to the Resident she was accompanying, and we loved the bright cheerfulness she brought to our dining room during the days when she was here with us attending to her precious charge.
After her departure, every time there was news of Maria we would ask, “Is that our Maria?” From visiting relatives in Italy to walking the Camino in Spain to serving at the Home of the Little Sisters in Lisbon and attending World Youth Day there in Portugal, to beginning her prepostulate in Palatine to spending the holidays with her family in Michigan to moving to the Little Sisters in Baltimore in January and attending the Mass for Life in Washington, we have followed news of “our” Maria. But this avid fan of adventure has now entered upon the greatest adventure of all as she has responded to her God-given vocation and officially begun her formation to become Our Lord’s spouse as a Little Sister of the Poor.
You can see how radiantly happy Maria is in this photo, taken on February 2, the day of the official opening of her postulancy. Yes, that’s “our” Maria! ?
