Hesselblad is recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations due to her efforts in World War II saving the lives of Jews during the genocide of the Holocaust.

At first, she looked for work in Sweden, but eventually immigrated to the United States of America in 1888, where she studied nursing at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

[4] She developed an interest in the Catholic Church while deep prayer and personal study led her down the path of conversion and on 15 August 1902, the Feast of the Assumption, she received conditional baptism from a Jesuit priest, Johann Georg Hagen, in the chapel of the Georgetown Visitation Monastery in Washington, D.C.[5] Hagen also became her spiritual director.

Hasselblad received special permission for this from Pope Pius X in 1906, at which time she assumed the habit of the Bridgettines, including its distinctive element of a veil with a symbolic crown.

Giving up on the intention of following the established way of life in the order, she proposed one which included the care of the sick.

[5] Hesselblad returned to her homeland of Sweden in 1923, where she was able to establish a community in Djursholm, while she worked nursing the sick poor.

During World War II – and after – she performed many charitable works on behalf of the poor and those who suffered due to racial laws and also promoted a peace movement that involved Christians and non-Christians.

[4] Her apostolic zeal contributed to the conversion of the Baptist minister Piero Chuminelli – author of a biographical account of Bridget of Sweden – and she also had close ties to the former Chief Rabbi of Rome Israel Zolli (Eugenio) who converted to the faith in 1946.

Pope John Paul II proclaimed Elisabeth Hasselblad to be a Venerable Servant of God on 26 March 1999 after he recognised that she had lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue.

Pope Francis approved the second miracle attributed to her on 14 December 2015 which would allow for her future canonization; the date was decided at an ordinary consistory of cardinals on 15 March 2016 and was celebrated in Saint Peter's Square on 5 June 2016.