Maria Barba was born on 16 January 1884 into the bosom of a deeply believing family, but which resolutely opposed her religious vocation, manifested since the age of fifteen.

Maria, in fact, would have to wait almost twenty years before she could effectively realize her aspiration, demonstrating, in these years of expectation and interior suffering, a surprising fortitude of soul and an uncommon fidelity to the initial inspiration. In this struggle, which ended with her entry into the Teresian Carmel in Ragusa on 25^th of September 1919, Maria Barba was sustained by a very special devotion to the mystery of the Eucharist: in the Eucharist, she saw the mystery of God's sacramental presence in the world, the concreteness of his infinite love for people, the reason for our full trust in his promises.

Upon entering Carmel, where she took the name of Mary Candida of the Eucharist, she fully developed what she herself called her «vocation for the Eucharist».

Elected prioress of the monastery in 1924, she remained so until 1947, except for a brief interruption, instilling in her community a deep love for the Rule of Saint Teresa of Jesus and contributing directly to the expansion of the Teresian Carmel in Sicily, and to the return of the male branch of the Order.

The Lord called her, after a few months of acute physical suffering, on June 12, 1949, on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

The beatification ceremony took place on March 21, 2004.