Pious Lady

Born in Rabat, the daughter of Michele Bugeja and Carmela née Vassallo, Ġuża, from a very early age showed tendencies towards spirituality. At the age of four and a half years she received her first Holy Communion. She was of a cheerful disposition and was always ready to help others. At the age of thirteen Ġuża had to leave school as her help was required by her father at his work on the land. Here Ġuża Bugeja worked willingly and cheerfully. She found time to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion daily. She also found time for daily spiritual meditation. Once she herself asserted that this habit had kept her in a state of grace till the very end.

She belonged to a number of religious organisations and was very religious.

Determined to remain a maiden, it is believed that when she was about twenty-five years old while working on her father's fields she received a vision of the Holy Image of the suffering Christ. So impressed she was, that she implored Christ to inflict head pains on her, but in such a way that no one would notice and offer her sufferings as expiation for the sins of all. From that very instant her agony of suffering started, lasting throughout the remaining eleven years of her life.

In 1957 Bugeja emigrated to Canada seeking to spread evangelisation, she stayed there for nearly five years, facing great difficulties, yet the fruit of her works survives to this day. In January 1962 Ġuża returned to Malta owing to increasing ill-health. She spent the last two years of her life doing God’s work mostly amongst the sick, the elderly, the very young, suffering in silent cheerfulness owing to her never-ending head pains.

Weakened now by her disease but still cheerful Ġuża Bugeja died at 37 years of age on the very day she had predicted about four months earlier.

Ġuża Bugeja died at her home in College Street Rabat, and was buried at the crypt beneath the Collegiate Parish Church of St. Paul of Rabat. Two and a half years later, her body was moved from the said crypt to the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery. Numerous avow to have received from God favours they had prayed for through her intercession.

This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.