Saturday, August 29, 2009

Our Mother Riccarda was all sweetnes and sympathy


Readers from Eastbourne and Crawley sent me this link to a story from the Times about our own Mother Riccarda. It is account of a man who was hidden in the convent as a 15 year old.
“We called Mother Riccarda ‘mammina’, as if she was our mother,” Piperno said. “She was Mother Mary Elizabeth’s right hand. They were two faces of the same coin.” Where the mother superior had been “strict and rigid”, Mother Riccarda “was all sweetness and sympathy. She was always around, and everybody went to her when you had any kind of problem. She was very comforting.

5 comments:

Londiniensis said...

I wonder if Piero Piperno, with his ancient Roman lineage, is connected in any way with the celebrated Ristorante Piperno in the old Jewish Ghetto area?

midnightbritsforyou said...

God blesses you all, stay positive as always

Jackie Parkes MJ said...

Just love the Bridgettines..

Independent said...

The Mother Superior, Mother Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, sounds like a German to me. I wonder if she was from Germany or from germanophone Italy.

The whole account sounds like that excellent film "Conspiracy of Hearts" made in the late fifties which told the story of Jews saved from the Nazis by a Convent with a German Mother Superior.

It helps to confound the critics of Pius XII.

Londiniensis said...

"Conspiracy of Hearts" is indeed an excellent film, which always seems overlooked in lists of "100 Best" or "Films about nuns".

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