BLESSED MARIE CHRISTINE OF SAVOY

Bl. Marie Christine of Savoy
Feast day: January 31
Born at Cagliari, Sardinia, 14 November, 1812;
Died at Naples, 31 January, 1836.
Blessed Mary Christina,

 Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, in 1812; died 1836;
 beatified in 1872. In 1832, Mary Christina, daughter of King Victor Emmanuel of Savoy and Maria Teresa (niece of Emperor Joseph II), married Ferdinand II, king of the two Sicilies. She had one son before her death at age 23
 She was the daughter of Victor Emanuel I, King of Sardinia, and of Maria Teresa of Austria, niece of the Emperor Joseph II. She lost her father in 1824 and her mother at the beginning of the year 1832. Charles Albert, who succeeded to the throne of Sardinia, insisted upon her appearing at the court of Turin, and she married Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies (21 November, 1832). She died at the age of twenty-three, after having given birth fifteen days before to a son, Francesco-Maria-Leopold, Duke of Calabria. The renown of her virtues had been so great during her brief life, and after her death the graces obtained by her intercession were so numerous, that the Italian episcopate and many Catholic sovereigns obtained from Pius IX the signature, on 9 February, 1859, of the decree by which the process of her canonization was introduced before the Congregation of Rites. This resulted in her name being inscribed, in 1872 in the list of the Blessed.