3. Maria Milito was born in Sapri, Province of Salerno on 23rd of June, 1913

4. She enjoyed a happy childhood and a good family surrounded with love and affection.

5. At 16 years of age, she decided to give meaning to her life and joined the “Italian Catholic Action”.

6. Maria felt a deep desire to offer her whole life at the service of others but not in the married life…no matter how sublime this vocation may be.

7. But the first obstacle to her dream was the disapproval of her family. So, she had to wait until she reached 21 years old and firmly left her home to enter religious life.

8. On June 18, 1935, Maria joined the Congregation of the Poor Daughters of St. Anthony where she got the name, “Leonia”.

9. She lived her life in that Congregation with total dedication in kindness, obedience and generous availability…

10. Since childhood she already expressed great desire to proclaim Jesus to the whole world!

11. … to bring the seed of the Good News to our brothers and sisters to the ends of the earth.

12. In 1954, Leonia was chosen to be the delegate of the Institute’s first missionary group of sisters in Brazil.

14. The seed thrown into the Brazilian soil germinated and gave fruit…

15. On March 19, 1958 together with Msgr. Geraldo Fernandes, founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Anthony Mary Claret

16. Her missionary dreams and endeavors knows no limit…

17. Mother Leonia as a great missionary… …confront every decisive and difficult moment with great trust and confidence in God’s loving and mysterious ways…

18. I love you in every person of the poor: poor in material things, poor in intellegence and poor in the joy and comfort.” “Oh, Jesus, I love you. I love you most especially in my neighbor and in every suffering soul.

19. The Claretian sisters are “consecrated to God to live totally His love, to console the afflicted, the little ones and the oppressed.”

20. “…our life consecrated to God, must manifest a living face of Christ!”

21. At the age 67, full of apostolic zeal and vigor, Mother Leonia returned to the Father’s House as a victim of car accident. In the place where she died, was built a chapel in memory of her… Pilgrims/devotees come to this chapel to pray, ask her intercession or express thanksgiving for the graces recieved…

22. …but continue to ablaze around the world in the person of the daughters of the Congregation. Her missionary spirit didn’t die with her earthly body…

23. Her body rests in the Eucharistic Sanctuary of Londrina in the Mother House of the Missionary Sisters of St. Anthony Mary Claret.

24. In truth, Mother Leonia never left us!

25. Her spiritual presence, her guidance, her intercession, impels us to commit ourselves to love God, to grow in sanctity and to serve our brothers and sisters especially the poorest among the poor in the spirit of Kindness and Joy.