On the very day of her First Communion and Confirmation at the age of ten, Eugenia Ravasco, of Milan, Italy, began the habit of stopping to pray at every church she happened to pass. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary were to become the hallmarks of Eugenia's spiritual life. At the age of eighteen, while considering the question of her vocation, Eugenia heard a priest in church ask the congregation, "Is there no one out there who feels called to dedicate himself to doing good for love of the Heart of Jesus?" The young woman heard in these words a personal message to her from God. Five years later, Eugenia undertook the foundation of a new religious congregation, the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, devoted to the educational formation of needy young women into "honest citizens in society and saints in heaven." Mother Eugenia died on December 30, 1900, having imparted to her congregation her own aspiration to "live in abandonment to God and in the hands of Mary Immaculate."
