The servant of God, Sister Maria Chiara of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, born Vincenza Damato, eighth of a numerous offspring, was born to Luigi and Maria Dell'Aquila. From an early age, she attended the parish of the Holy Family of Barletta, enrolling in the association of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in the Catholic Action. Here she stands out as a zealous catechist and an affectionate and charitable friend. On 7 September 1928, at the age of nineteen, she entered the Farnese Poor Clares of Castel Gandolfo, where she consecrated herself to the Lord with religious vows on 1930 November XNUMX. Her existence was a gift lived out of love and in the love that Sister Maria Chiara manifested it especially during the Second World War when the monastery of Albano was targeted by bombings in which eighteen nuns were killed. Impressed too, she does not neglect anything to alleviate the suffering of the surviving sisters. All this weakened her health and at the age of thirty-six she fell ill with tuberculosis, thus offering her life totally and living her last hours without the comfort of her sisters, as she was forced to reach the San Camillo sanatorium in Rome first. and, later, the Cotugno of Bari. Even in these places he continues to experience his encounter of love with God.
She died on March 9, 1948, on the day and at the hour she had predicted herself. She was declared venerable on April 2, 2011.
