The patroness of fervent first communion, Blessed Imelda, came from one of the oldest families in Bologna; her father was Count Igano Lambertini and her mother was Castora Galuzzi. Even as a tiny child she showed unusual piety, taking delight in prayer and slipping off to a quiet corner of the house, which she adorned with flowers and pictures to make it a little oratory. When she was nine, she was placed, at her own wish, in the Dominican convent in Val di Pietra, to be trained there by the nuns. Her disposition soon endeared her to all, while the zeal with which she entered all the religious life of the house greatly edified the nuns. Her special devotion was to the Eucharistic presence of Our Lord at Mass and in the tabernacle. To receive Our Lord in Holy Communion became the consuming desire of her heart, but the custom of the place and time had fixed twelve as the earliest age for a first communion. She would sometimes exclaim: "Tell me, can anyone receive Jesus into his heart and not die? "
When she was eleven years old she was present with the rest of the community at the Ascension Day Mass. All the others had received their communion: only Imelda was left unsatisfied. The nuns were preparing to leave the church when some of them were startled to see what appeared to be a Sacred Host hovering in the air above Imelda, as she knelt before the closed tabernacle absorbed in prayer. Quickly they attracted the attention of the priest who hurried forward with a paten on which to receive It. In the face of such a miracle he could not do otherwise than give to Imelda her first communion, which was also her last. For the rapture with which she received her Lord was so great that it broke her heart: she sank unconscious to the ground, and when loving hands upraised her, it was found that she was dead.∼Saint Imelda was born at Bologna in Italy, in the early 14th century. Still a child, she arranged a little oratory in her house, where she often would pray. She resolved to enter a monastery and make the vows of religion, and to give herself entirely to her Saviour. Her parents permitted her entry into a Dominican convent at Valdipietra, near Bologna. She practiced mortifications above her age, and manifested a very tender love for the Queen of Angels and the Holy Eucharist, though she could not yet receive Holy Communion. But God was soon to manifest that it is not age which wins His favor, but virtue.

On the day of the Ascension in 1333, when Imelda was twelve years old, she alone remained unable to advance to receive Holy Communion. She raised her eyes to heaven and prayed to her Lord: "Come, for I am languishing with love and dying with desire for Your adorable presence!" When He did not come, she continued to pray and weep. Suddenly, a miraculous Host came forth from the tabernacle, crossed the grill separating the choir, and stopped in the air before her. The nuns, amazed, hardly dared raise their eyes, but soon they realized there was no illusion: the miracle continued, a sudden brightness and a sweet fragrance filled the church, while an invisible hand continued to hold the mystical Bread in the air before the young girl. She herself seemed an Angel in adoration. Her confessor was told to come, and saw all that the Sisters were seeing. He placed the Sacred Host on a paten, and then gave it to the child. She seemed to lose consciousness. But soon the Sisters grew anxious; they called her by name, told her to rise, touched her, but Saint Imelda was no longer of this world; she had expired in an ecstasy of pure love.