Her childhood saw her noted as stubborn and obstinate though her increased activeness in teaching catechism and joining Azione Cattolica saw those qualities melt and become gentleness and careful attentiveness.

[2] Once she concluded her initial education as a child she had to leave school to help out at home where she showed herself serious and endowed with a great sense of care and dutiful obedience.

The death of her little sister Giovanna Antonia (whom she was closest to and was born in 1915) in 1932 prompted her to deepen her faith and she decided to enroll in Azione Cattolica not long after this.

[3][2] On 30 September 1935 she entered the Trappists at their convent in Grottaferrata near Rome where she was given the religious name of Maria Gabriella; she was clothed in the habit for the first time on 13 April 1936 and made her vows on 31 October 1937 which marked the Feast of Christ the King.

[3] The abbess of the convent at that time there was Mother Maria Pia Gullini whose enthusiasm for ecumenism (a fruit of the efforts of Abbé Paul Couturier) was passed on to the others there.

Sagheddu fell ill with tuberculosis after a diagnosis in Rome and suffered with the disease for fifteen months before she died during the evening on 23 April 1939.

...The example of Sister Maria Gabriella is instructive; it helps us to understand that there are no special times, situations or places of prayer for unity.

Sagheddu was beatified on 25 January 1983 in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which was the same observance which motivated her decision to offer her life to God.