Anna Michelotti was born in Annecy in Haute-Savoie (at the time the territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia), on 29 August 1843, the third child of Gian Michele Telesforo Michelotti, a Piedmontese emigrant from Almese and Pierina Mugnier-Serand from Annecy. She is baptized the next day in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Liesse.
At the age of five, she was orphaned of a father, she grew up at her mother’s school, a woman of firm Christian principles who did her utmost to help others, in particular she visited and assisted the sick in their homes. At the age of 12, on March 25, 1855, Anna made her first communion. March 25 is the day that Anna always remembered with emotion and gratitude.
The providential gift that mother Pierina gave to Anna that day is a visit to a poor sick person to comfort him and offer him help. With that gesture of delicate charity, the mother wanted Anna to return the great visit of Jesus received in the morning, a truly unique gift.
Since adolescence, Anna feels a strong desire to consecrate her life to God in the service of the poor, because the words of St. Francis de Sales were alive in her: “… do not be satisfied with being poor like the poor, but be poorer than the poor , go and serve them when they lie in bed sick and serve them with your own hands. This servitude is more glorious than a kingdom ”.
In France Anna does not find an Institute that meets her expectations. One day while she was gathered in prayer in the Basilica of the Visitation in Annecy at the altars of S. Francis de Sales and S. Jane Frances di Chantal, she clearly perceives a voice saying to her: “Go to Turin and found your Institute “.
Anna, without delay, leaves Savoy and comes definitively to Italy: it is the year 1871. First stop is Almese, in Val di Susa, where she stops for a short period of time to greet her paternal relatives and then goes towards Turin. Rent a room with the Lupis sisters in Moncalieri, a town near Turin, from which he leaves every day, on foot, to go to the city equipped with a broom and a spirit machine, this says the poverty that reigned in the attics and basements of the poor where he lends his selfless care to the sick. From Moncalieri Anna soon moved to the historic center of the city of Turin, to carry out her work more efficiently and to welcome the first young women who wanted to share her ideal of hers.
In 1873 she rents three rooms in Via Santa Maria di Piazza, 5, in the heart of Turin, near the church of S. Maria di Piazza. On 8 August 1875, the archbishop of Turin, Msgr. Lorenzo Gastaldi approves the nascent institute, while on 2 October Anna, with the name of Sister Giovanna Francesca della Visitazione and her first companions make religious profession, with the fourth vow to serve the sick poor for free. Thus was born the Institute of the Little Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for free assistance to the sick poor at home.
In 1876 she moved with the small community to Piazzetta del Corpus Domini, 16. A woman of great virtue, she retired from 14 to 23 June 1878 at the Visitation monastery in Via delle Orfane in Turin to write the first rules. September 1880, the Archbishop of Milan, Mgr. Nazari of Calabiana, welcomes the first Little Servants to his diocese. The Foundress begins the shuttle between Turin and Milan, to help the nascent community. Year 1882, trusting only in Providence and “… putting the deal in the hands of St. Joseph” are her exact words, she bought Villa Pruss, in the Valsalice area, the current Mother House and Generalate of the Congregation.
Anna Michelotti’s work in the city of Turin takes place over a span of 15 years, from 1872 until her death. She died on 1 February 1888, the day after Don Bosco. A few hours before her death he allowed her, yielding to the repeated insistence of the nuns, to be photographed. She the one who for her whole life, she forgets about herself, she had served the most defenseless of her, she was buried, with the Franciscan girdle at her sides, in a very poor coffin, in the rain-soaked earth of a small cemetery . “The grain of wheat” was dead but a light of love would continue to shine through her daughters, who are also active today in the mission land. Her relics are venerated in Turin in the Valsalice mother house. On July 27, 1933, she begins the information process on her life and on her virtues. On 15 December 1966, Blessed Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini, 1963-1978) pronounced on the heroic nature of her virtues. On 23 May 1975 he promulgated the decree of beatification and on 1 November 1975 he proclaimed her Blessed.
Source: https://it.aleteia.org/daily-prayer/lunedi-1o-febbraio/