At the age of 61, she entered the monastery. Sr. Lilia Maria was bearing many positions in her life. She was a postmaster, a grandmother and mother. Lilia, a widow, decided to take a new path and dedicate herself to God. That is how she entered the monastery after a long period of prayer.
Sr. Lilia Maria Caterina Battaglierin was born in April 1932. For the first 61 years of her life, she led a normal, ordinary life in the world. She became a mother, and for 40 years she was a postmaster at the Post Office in Italy near Venice. After retiring from work, on May 23, 1993, Lilia Maria Catarina joined the Visitation Monastery in Padua. Now she has been a monk for 25 years. According to the rules of the monastery, the visitors are allowed only once in a month.
This community of nuns was started in 1610 by St. Francis de Sales and St. Jeanne Frances de Chantal. The members of this community are called Salesian Sisters or Visitation Sisters. Initially, they would spend a few hours each day helping the sick and the poor. But then society adopted another way of life. The practice of welcoming elderly, unhealthy women and widows as members did not previously exist in this monastic community.
These nuns do not read newspapers or watch television, except for the message associated with the Pope’s Sunday Angelus prayer. Yet they are not completely separated from the world. This is because they receive hundreds of letters and prayer requests from believers from various places. They spend the whole day in prayer for those assignments.
They dedicate their lives to mediating between God and man for the world and their needs. Sr. Lilia Maria is glad to be able to give his whole life in prayer to others, just as the saints prayed to God for us in heaven.