- Mother Maddalena’s sister, Constance, delighted in the pomp and display of the old rite for receiving the Poor Clare habit. She was invested on May 1, 1864:
Her sister Matilda wrote to Maddalena:
This morning I recalled to mind the reception of our most dear Constance. I imagined that I was in the year 1864, in the church of San Lorenzo, in Panisperna. What a vision! I saw once more the dear Constance in her bridal robes. Really, it was beautiful! The trials, the labors, the tribulations, and the penance of the years that have since then elapsed had not crushed that budding beauty of twenty-four summers - tall, agile, with golden locks which glistened in the sunlight, adorned with a white veil and a precious diadem. A belt, set with priceless stones, encircled the dress with the long trail. At her side was our cousin, blond, graceful, and vested as a little angel, holding up the long dress; at the other side was our guardian, Cardinal Borromeo (who was then major-domo to Pius IX) robed in pontificals. She held the cope as she passed up the aisle of the church. At the gate of the cloister, she was, according to a special rite, handed over to the Abbess, who with all the Sisters, bearing lighted candles, accompanied her in procession into the interior of the convent chapel, where she put off the worldly garments — ‘the old man’—and vested herself in the coarse woolen garments, girded herself with the hard girdle, and put on a crown of thorns as the elect spouse of Jesus.