At four o’clock in the morning Annalena Tonelli biked across the town of Forlí, Italy, with schoolbooks in her backpack and a knife in her pocket. She carried the knife out of obedience, not fear – no one would ever accuse Annalena of being afraid. Her father, Guido, was afraid for her and the only way she could leave home, alone, in the dark at such a dangerous hour was if she carried that knife. Since he placed this single condition on her, Annalena complied. She biked across the cobblestone streets to her friend’s house, where they studied for upcoming high school exams.

The time, hours before sunrise, wasn’t early for Annalena. She read that humans spend, on average, a third of their life asleep. She determined not to waste her time sleeping and began training her body. It was stubborn and wanted to sleep; she fought back. She called her body “Brother Donkey,” as Francis of Assisi had called his, and refused to give in.

Who set the Italian-born “Mother Teresa of Somalia” on such an unlikely path of radical service and self-renunciation?