If you want inspiration for living feminine genius as a holy woman of strength, fortitude with gentleness, today’s Dominican saints give plenty to ponder. Blessed Diana and Cecilia were two of the first nuns of the Order of Preachers in Italy, and both of them faced difficult challenges in pursuing their vocation to give themselves completely to God as His bride.

Bl. Cecilia was a nun in Rome when she and her community first met Saint Dominic. Our Holy Father Dominic had been asked by the pope to reform the women religious of Rome, as most of them had grown lax in their observances. Dominic’s proposal to the nuns was to essentially come together and refound themselves under his direction as nuns of the Order of Preachers. His words and the workings of the Holy Spirit persuaded them. But before they could complete the arrangements, their families protested. They had gotten used to the lax practices, to being able to enter and leave the monastery enclosure and visit their female relatives in the monastery. The nuns began to waiver. Dominic came again and strengthened them in their resolve and they didn’t look back. When the way was made for a monastery of nuns to be founded in Bologna, made possible in large part because of Bl. Diana, Bl. Cecilia was asked to go to Bologna and teach the new nuns there the ways of the Dominican life.

To read the story of Bl. Diana is to meet a dynamic, passionate woman. From a noble background, she loved fashion and parties, and was considered beautiful and charming. Her parents had high hopes for a good marriage for her. Then, one day, a couple Dominican friars came into Bologna where they lived and began preaching. Diana was captivated…and experienced a turning point in her life. She began to engage in long periods of prayer and undertook acts of greater penance and sacrifice. When the friars needed a place to build a priory, Diana convinced her father to give them the land they needed. But when she decided to build a monastery for Dominican nuns and enter herself, her family forbid it.

Not to be outdone, she came up with a plan to have her way. She visited an Augustinian monastery and, to the surprise of her party visiting with her, she suddenly slipped inside and donned the habit! Stunned, they immediately reported her actions to her family. Her brothers were sent to fetch her, forcibly if necessary. And in the struggle, Diana suffered a broken rib that left her convalescing, imprisoned in her family home. Her family forbid that she have contact with the friars, but Dominic, and after his death his successor, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, slipped to her notes and words of encouragement. Eventually, due to the influence of Bl. Jordan and the workings of the Holy Spirit, Divine Providence cleared the way for Diana’s vocation - her family relented and she happily joined the ranks of Dominican nuns at the new monastery in Bologna.

We are indebted to these women in many ways: it is because of Bl. Cecilia that we know the appearance of Our Holy Father Dominic; her description of his physical appearance is the only one we have. And we are grateful for Bl. Diana and her community; they have preserved letters from Bl. Jordan to Diana which reveal much about the second Master of our Order and some of the happenings at the time, as well as provide a beautiful description of spiritual friendship. And they each model for us feminine genius lived with ingenuity, fortitude and grace under fire.

Blessed Diana and Blessed Cecilia, pray for us!