WEST COVINA, Calif. — Rossella Bignami was in big trouble with her parents. They refused to accept her phone calls or to open the door when she attempted to visit.

Bignami's offense? At age 20 she joined the Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata and embarked upon four years of formation in order to consecrate herself to Mary Immaculate — following the example of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the martyr of Auschwitz.

Lay people who consecrate themselves, Bignami explained, commit to having only one purpose in life: to focus 100% on Jesus while reaching out to others in order to share God's truth, joy and love. Missionaries take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They practice mortification in speech, eating and drinking.

“Neither of my parents were happy about it, but my mother was really disappointed,” recalled Bignami, 45. “She wanted something different for me. She wanted me to become a doctor, and she wanted me to get married. She wanted career success and personal success for me as defined by the world.”

Her parents were churchgoing Catholics in Italy. In her early teens, however, Bignami began working every moment of the day at developing a closer relationship with God. It gave her parents the willies.

Bignami's transformation came at age14 when she saw a film about St. Francis, who as a youth battled an agenda established for him by his wealthy and materialistic father and set out on a spiritual quest.

Bignami began immersing herself in Scripture and absorbing every book she could find about St. Francis. Her own ultra-wealthy parents, fearing the girl was over the top in regard to religion, started running interference.

“Mother … would arrange for me to meet boys,” Bignami said. “She took me to parties and tried to make me appreciate earthly goods, such as new cars and fancy dresses.”

Her parents even tried to curtail the girl's personal prayer time.

“I would hide my prayer books inside my school books so they thought I was studying,” Bignami said.

After high school Bignami attended a university in Trento, Italy, and finished a degree in sociology while working through formation at the Missionaries of the Immaculata Institute in Italy. Throughout those four years, Bignami's parents had nothing to do with her.

“After four years of formation, mom finally realized I was not going to just snap out of it,” Bignami said. “I prayed for her, and after my first profession of vows, a grace seemed to come over her. She began calling me, and I was welcome to visit the house again.”

Winning Hearts

Gradually, Bignami said, her parents came full circle. At first they had rejected her decision to lead a consecrated life, then they reluctantly accepted it, and within a few years of her formal consecration, they became fully supportive and involved in her ministry.

“They were invited to hear me speak at a parish, and they were able to see and understand my work in evangelization,” Bignami said. “Little by little they began helping me in my work. At one point they basically became my chauffeurs so I could travel around Italy to speak at parishes about consecrated life and the Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata. They understood the value in what I was doing, and today they are very happy about it.”

In 2000, Bignami moved from Italy to West Covina, Calif., to join the only Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata community in the United States. The missionaries have 15 communities worldwide, ranging in size from seven to 25 members. Members of each community spend at least three hours a day in prayer, including Mass, adoration and personal silent prayer.

“Our work is to spread the good news of the Gospel,” Bignami said. “We give talks, teach Catechism, give retreats, offer counseling and take care of many aspects of spiritual formation and growth. We help people get closer to God.”

And they help the poor.

“We tend to spiritual poverty,” Bignami said. “But we also share food and clothing — things that get donated to us — with poor families we know of.”

Bignami said parental opposition to the decision to live a consecrated life is common. In fact, she said at least half of the women who join the Missionaries of the Immaculata have similar stories about intense opposition from family and friends.

“The world values power and wealth and material accumulation,” Bignami said. “Almost anywhere you live, the world tells you that those things are important. When you decide to lead a consecrated life, you are making a decision not to pursue power and personal enrichment but to serve. Most people are not conditioned to understand that, and they think you're making a huge mistake.”

Affected by Joy

Like her own story, however, Bignami said most stories of opposition to the consecrated life have happy endings. Friends and family ultimately come to appreciate the joy, peace and fulfillment exuded by Father Kolbe missionaries.

Mary Franceschini said the love and joy that's spread by the Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata pulled her out of debilitating depression, despair and loneliness.

“Three years ago my fiancé passed away unexpectedly three weeks before our wedding,” Franceschini said. “By God's good love, Rossella Bignami came along and she has had a wonderful influence on deepening my spiritual life. I'm starting to let go easier now. I love [my late fiancé] dearly and I miss him, but I am coping better now through strength I didn't know I had.”

The Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata is a secular institute founded in 1954 by Franciscan Conventual Father Luigi Faccenda in Bologna, Italy. Secular institutes are comprised of lay people who have professed the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience.

The missionaries have roots in the Militia of the Immaculata, a worldwide evangelization movement founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe in 1917 that encourages total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a means of spiritual renewal for individuals and society.

Missionaries in West Covina helped lead Lucy Bonello to become a consecrated member of the Militia of the Immaculata in June 2003.

“I was at a loss as to what to do regarding the sex-abuse scandal in the Church,” Bonello said. “This is how I'm dealing with it, by leading a consecrated life and by praying for more priests, the Church and for more souls to be consecrated to Mary.”

Bonello, 77, does not live in community with other missionaries. In her mid-40s, her husband left her alone to care for all 13 of their children and she had no means of supporting the family. She studied to become a registered nurse, found a job and, in her words, let God handle the rest.

“Daily Mass took care of it,” Bonello said, explaining why she believes in the power of prayer. “We got by and it was 10% sweat by me and 90% God. Today I see very clearly a new springtime in the Church. You simply cannot believe how hungry people are right now. People are realizing that the material world cannot offer the fulfillment that a spiritual life can. That's why I'm consecrated.”

Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.