St. Gemma Galgani

Posted on April 11, 2020 by admin No comments

Born: Maria Gemma Umberta Galgani 12 March 1878 Camigliano, Capannori, Italy

Died: 11 April 1903 (aged 25) Lucca, Italy

Venerated: in Roman Catholic Church

Beatified: 14 May 1933 by Pope Pius XI

Canonized: 2 May 1940, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City by Pope Pius XII

Major shrine: Passionist Monastery in Lucca, Italy

Feast: 11 April (celebrated by Passionists on 16 May)

Patronage: Students, Pharmacists, Paratroopers and Parachutists, loss of parents, those suffering back injury or back pain, those suffering with headaches/migraines, those struggling with temptations to impurity and those seeking purity of heart.

Maria Gemma Umberta Galgani (12 March 1878 – 11 April 1903) was an Italian mystic, venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church since 1940. She has been called the “Daughter of the Passion” because of her profound imitation of the Passion of Christ.^[2] She is especially venerated in the Congregation of the Passion (Passionists).

Early Life

Gemma Umberta Maria Galgani was born on 12 March 1878 in the hamlet of Camigliano in the provincial town of Capannori. Gemma was the fifth of eight children; her father, Enrico Galgani, was a prosperous pharmacist.

Soon after Galgani’s birth, the family relocated north from Camigliano to a large new home in the Tuscan city of Lucca in a move which was undertaken to facilitate an improvement in the children’s education. Gemma’s mother, Aurelia Galgani, contracted tuberculosis. Because of this hardship, Gemma was placed in a private nursery school run by Elena and Ersilia Vallini when she was two-and-a-half years old.

Several members of the Galgani family died during this period. Their firstborn child, Carlo, and Gemma’s little sister Giulia died at an early age. On 17 September 1885 Aurelia Galgani died from tuberculosis, which she had suffered from for five years, and Gemma’s beloved brother Gino died from the same disease while studying for the priesthood.

Education

Galgani was sent to a Catholic half-boarding school in Lucca run by the Sisters of St. Zita. She excelled in French, arithmetic, and music. At the age of nine, Galgani was allowed to receive her first communion.

Adolescence

At age 16, Galgani developed spinal meningitis, but recovered. She attributed her extraordinary cure to the Sacred Heart of Jesusthrough the intercession of the Venerable Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows (later canonized), and Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque.

Shortly after turning 18 Galgani was orphaned, and thereafter she was responsible for the upbringing of her younger siblings, which she did with her aunt Carolina. She declined two marriage proposals and became a housekeeper with the Giannini family.

Mysticism

According to a biography written by her spiritual director, Germanus Ruoppolo, Galgani began to display signs of the stigmata on 8 June 1899, at the age of twenty-one. She stated that she had spoken with her guardian angel, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other saints especially Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. According to her testimonies, she sometimes received special messages from them about current or future events. With her health in decline, Ruoppolo directed her to pray for the disappearance of her stigmata; she did so and the marks ceased. She said that she resisted the Devil’s attacks often.

Galgani was frequently found in a state of ecstasy. She has also been reputed to levitate: she claimed that on one occasion, when her arms were around the crucifix in her dining room and she was kissing the wound on the side of the Crucified, she found herself raised from the floor.

Stigmata

Galgani is alleged to have experienced stigmata on 8 June 1899, on the eve of the feast of the Sacred Heart. She writes:

I felt an inward sorrow for my sins, but so intense that I have never felt the like again … My will made me detest them all, and promise willingly to suffer everything as expiation for them. Then the thoughts crowded thickly within me, and they were thoughts of sorrow, love, fear, hope and comfort. In the subsequent rapture, Gemma saw her guardian angel in the company of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

The Blessed Virgin Mary opened her mantle and covered me with it. At that very moment Jesus appeared with his wounds all open; blood was not flowing from them, but flames of fire which in one moment came and touched my hands, feet and heart. I felt I was dying, and should have fallen down but for my Mother (Blessed Virgin Mary) who supported me and kept me under her mantle. Thus I remained for several hours. Then my Mother kissed my forehead, the vision disappeared and I found myself on my knees; but I still had a keen pain in my hands, feet and heart. I got up to get into bed and saw that blood was coming from the places where I had the pain. I covered them as well as I could and then, helped by my guardian angel, got into bed.

Physician Pietro Pfanner who had known Saint Gemma since her childhood examined her claims of stigmata. He observed hysterical behaviour and suspected she may have suffered from a form of neurosis.^[6] Pfanner examined Gemma and noted spots of blood on the palms of her hands but when he ordered the blood to be wiped away with a wet towel there was no wound. He concluded the phenomena was self-inflicted. This was confirmed on another occasion by Gemma’s fostermother Cecilia Giannini who observed a sewing needle on the floor next to her.

Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written in a book published nearly 50 years after her death that her stigmata was caused by “self-inflicted wounds of a major hysteric.”

Galgani was well known in the vicinity of Lucca before her death, especially to those in poverty. Opinions of her were divided. Some people admired her extraordinary virtues and referred to her as The Virgin of Lucca out of pious respect and admiration. Others mocked her (including her younger sister, Angelina, who apparently used to make fun of Galgani during such experiences, and during Galgani’s canonization process was deemed as “unfit” to testify due to accusations of attempting to profit from Galgani’s reputation). In light of the extraordinary events surrounding her life, some skeptics thought that she had a mental illness.

Death, canonization and devotion

In early 1903, Galgani was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and went into a long and often painful decline accompanied by several mystical phenomena. One of the religious nursing sisters who attended to her stated, “We have cared for a good many sick people, but we have never seen anything like this.” At the beginning of Holy Week 1903, her health quickly deteriorated, and by Good Friday she was suffering tremendously, dying in a small room across from the Giannini house on 11 April 1903, Holy Saturday. After a thorough examination of her life by the Church, she was beatified on 14 May 1933 and canonized on 2 May 1940. Galgani’s relics are housed at the Sanctuary of Santa Gemma associated with the Passionist monastery in Lucca, Italy. Since 1985, her heart is housed in the Santuario de Santa Gema, in Madrid, Spain. Gemma Galgani’s confessor Germano Ruoppolo, who significantly influenced her, wrote a book about her.

Prayer to St. Gemma Galgani (back problems)

Oh glorious St. Gemma Galgani you suffered excruciating back pain for years. You know how painful it is to have doctors cauterize your back and how restricting it is to wear an iron brace.

You know well what people with back pain suffer. Teach (name person) through your perfect example how to suffer out of love for Christ for the salvation of souls.

O holy saint, you embraced suffering and sacrifice with tranquility and deep joy. So, St. Gemma, we offer to you (name person) and all who suffer with back issues.

Plead with the Holy Spirit to fill them with every grace needed to endure their suffering with grace, humble resignation, peace and joy.

Please take (name person) in your holy arms and carry him/her to your beloved Spouse fervently praying that He take (name person) in His arms and place him/her within His Sacred Heart and heal him/her if that be His holy will.

Thank you St. Gemma for interceding for (name person) and for pleading his/her case before the Lord. I look forward to a favorable outcome through your intercession. Amen.

Prayer to St Gemma to obtain a desired grace

Behold me at Your most holy feet, O dear Jesus, to manifest to you my gratitude for the continual favors which You have bestowed upon me, and still wish to bestow upon me.

As many times as I have invoked You, O Jesus, You have made me content; I have often had recourse to You and You have always consoled me. How shall I express myself to You, dear Jesus? I thank you! Yet one more grace I desire of you, O my God, if it would be pleasing to You (here mention your request).

If you were not omnipotent, I would not make this request. O Jesus, have pity on me. May your most holy will be done in all things”. Pray for us, Saint Gemma, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen

Prayer of St. Gemma Galgani

O my crucified God, behold me at Your feet; do not cast me out, now that I appear before You as a sinner. I have offended You exceedingly in the past, my Jesus, but it shall be so no longer. Before You, O Lord, I place all my sins; I have now considered Your own sufferings and see how great is the worth of that Precious Blood that flows from Your veins.

O my God, at this hour close Your eyes to my want of merit, and since You have been pleased to die for my sins, grant me forgiveness for them all, that I may no longer feel the burden of my sins, for this burden, Dear Jesus, oppresses me beyond measure. Assist me, my Jesus, for I desire to become good whatsoever it may cost; take away, destroy, utterly root out all that You find in me contrary to Your holy will. At the same time, I pray You, Lord Jesus, to enlighten me that I may be able to walk in Your holy light. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gemma Galgani

Oh holy Gemma, I am near you, help me to pray.

You know what I and those near me need; look after my urgent needs and my spiritual and material wants. You take care of them! I confide in you and entrust all to your loving care. Offer up to Jesus that tender and constant care that you bore Him here on earth.

Oh Holy Gemma, you who physically suffered all the pains of the Passion of Jesus, I beseech of you the grace to meditate on and live the Passion of Jesus, and the sufferings of Holy Mary.

Pray that I will be able to walk in the path of humility, simplicity, love and sacrifice, fulfilling at all times and in all ways, the holy will of God. Let me live united with Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and you, for all eternity. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gemma Galgani

Oh St. Gemma, How compassionate was your love for those in distress, and how great your desire to help them. Help me, also in my present necessity and obtain for me the favor I humbly implore, if it be profitable for my soul.

The numerous miracles and the wonderful favors attributed to your intercession instill in me the confidence that you can help me. Pray to Jesus, your Spouse, for me. Show Him the stigmata which His love has given you.

Remind Him of the blood which flowed from these same wounds, the excruciating pain which you have suffered and the tears which you have shed for the salvation of souls. Place all this as your precious treasure in a chalice of love and Jesus will hear you. Amen.

Novena to St. Gemma Galgani
Please recite this Novena for 9 consecutive days

DAY 1
Preface: Oh most Divine Lord, we humbly prostrate ourselves before Thy Infinite Majesty, and we adore Thee and dedicate to Thy glory the devout prayers which we now present to Thee, as an act of devotion to your servant, St Gemma Galgani, whose intercession we are now imploring.

Most compassionate virgin, St. Gemma, during thy short life on earth, you gave a most beautiful example of angelic innocence and seraphic love and was found worthy to bear in thy flesh the marks of our Lord’s Passion. Have pity on us who are so much in need of God’s Mercy, and obtain for us through thy merits and intercession, the special favor which we now fervently implore (mention request). …..

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.