March 9 is the feast day of St. Frances of Rome (1384–1440). She was a Catholic woman from a wealthy Roman family who married a nobleman and raised three children yet also spent much of her time and wealth caring for Rome's poor, sick, and destitute.
As plagues and other fatal diseases swept through Italy, she cared for the sick and even converted a section of her home into a hospital. She persevered after the premature deaths of two of her children and eventually her husband's death. As a widow she joined the religious order that she had helped to establish some years earlier, The Congregation of Oblates (under the Rule of St. Benedict).
To learn more about this great holy woman, click the hyperlinks below: