Wichita ? A ceremony in Rome to canonize the founder of the Adorers of Blood of Christ congregation will be a special event for many Wichita residents.

Some members of Wichita’s Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ will be among about 35 people from the city who flew to Italy to witness today’s ceremony at the Vatican that will declare Maria De Mattias a saint.

It will have been 107 years since Mattias’ name was submitted for consideration as a saint.

“I’ve been looking forward to this since I entered the congregation in 1933,” said Sister Teresa Palsmeier, 90. “We’re all happy. It feels great.”

Mattias is regarded as an educational pioneer who ministered especially to young women and the poor, founding many schools and the Adorers of the Blood of Christ congregation in 1834 in Acuto, Italy.

That congregation, which has a membership of about 200 in the Wichita area and about 2,000 worldwide, founded Newman University in Wichita. The university also has sent representatives to the Vatican for the canonization.

Her willingness to take risks and challenge the status quo provides inspiration even today for Catholic laity and clergy, said Sister Charlotte Rohrbach, director of service learning for Newman University and a member of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ.

Rohrbach, who will be in Rome, led the U.S. celebration committee for Mattias’ canonization.

“She had a willingness to keep getting back up,” she said. “She was a woman ahead of her time.”

Mattias helped establish ministries to help young women at a time when most church leaders often seemed to ignore their needs, Rohrbach said.

Mattias wrote many letters to bishops in her struggle to start and expand ministries she felt God wanted, Rohrbach said.