St. Gerard Majella

Posted on October 29, 2018 by admin No comments

Born: April 6, 1726 Muro Lucano, Basilicata, Kingdom of Naples

Died: October 16, 1755 (aged 29) Materdomini, Campania, Kingdom of Naples

Venerated: in Roman Catholic Church (The Redemptorists and Campagnia, Italy)

Beatified: January 29, 1893 by Pope Leo XIII

Canonized: December 11, 1904 by Pope Pius X

Major shrine: Shrine of St. Gerard Majella, Materdomini, Avellino, Italy

Feast: October 16 Attributes Young man in a Redemptorist habit, skull

Patronage: Children (and unborn children in particular); childbirth; mothers (and expectant mothers in particular); motherhood; falsely accused people; good confessions; lay brothers; tennis ball football, head boys and Muro Lucano, Italy.

Gerard Majella was an Italian lay brother of the Congregation of the Redeemer, better known as the Redemptorists, who is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church.

His intercession is sought for children, unborn children, women in childbirth, mothers, expectant mothers, motherhood, the falsely-accused, good confessions, lay brothers and Muro Lucano, Italy.

Life

Majella was born in Muro Lucano, Basilicata, the youngest of five children. He was the son of a tailor who died when Gerard was twelve, leaving the family in poverty. His mother then sent him to her brother so that he could teach Gerard to sew and follow in his father’s footsteps. However, the foreman was abusive. The boy kept silent, but his uncle soon found out and the man who taught him resigned from the job. After four years of apprenticeship, he took a job as a servant to work for the local Bishop of Lacedonia. Upon the bishop’s death, Gerard returned to his trade, working first as a journeyman and then on his own account. He divided his earnings between his mother and the poor and in offerings for the souls in Purgatory.

He tried to join the Capuchin Order, but his health prevented it. In 1749, he joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as Redemptorists. The order was founded in 1732 by Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) at Scala, near Naples. The essentially- missionary order is dedicated to “preaching the word of God to the poor.” Its apostolate is principally in giving of missions and retreats.

During his life, he was very close to the peasants and other outsiders who lived in the Neapolitan countryside. In his work with the Redemptorist community, he was variously gardener, sacristan, tailor, porter, cook, carpenter, and clerk of works on the new buildings at Caposele.

At 27, the good-looking Majella became the subject of a malicious rumor. An acquaintance, Neria, accused him of having had relations with a young woman. When confronted by Alphonsus Liguori, the founder, on the accusations, the young lay brother remained silent. The girl later recanted and cleared his name.

Some of Majella’s reported miracles include restoring life to a boy who had fallen from a high cliff, blessing the scanty supply of wheat belonging to a poor family and making it last until the next harvest, and several times multiplying the bread that he was distributing to the poor.

One day, he walked across the water to lead a boatload of fishermen through stormy waves to the safety of the shore. He was reputed to have had the gift of bilocation and the ability to read souls. His last will was a small note on the door of his cell: “Here the will of God is done, as God wills, and as long as God wills.” He died at 29 of tuberculosis.

Patron of mothers

One miracle in particular explains how Majella became known as the special patron of mothers. A few months before his death, he visited the Pirofalo family and accidentally dropped his handkerchief. One of the Pirofalo girls spotted the handkerchief moments after he had left the house, and she ran after Gerard to return it. “Keep it,” he said to her. “You may need it someday.”

Years later when the girl, now a married woman, was on the verge of losing her life in childbirth, she remembered the words of the saintly lay brother. She asked for the handkerchief to be brought to her. Almost immediately, the pain disappeared and she gave birth to a healthy child. That was no small feat in an era when only one out of three pregnancies resulted in a live birth, and word of the miracle spread quickly.

Because of the miracles that God worked through Gerard’s prayers with mothers, the mothers of Italy took Gerard to their hearts and made him their patron. At the process of his beatification, one witness testified that he was known as “il santo dei felice parti,” the saint of happy childbirths.

His devotion has become very popular in North America, both in the United States and Canada.

Veneration

Majella was beatified in Rome on January 29, 1893, by Pope Leo XIII. He was canonised less than twelve years later on December 11, 1904, by Pope Saint Pius X. The feast day of Saint Gerard Majella is October 16.

In 1977, St. Gerard’s Chapel in St. Lucy’s Church (Newark, New Jersey) was dedicated as a national shrine. Each year during the Feast days which include October 16, there are the traditional lights, music, food stands and the street procession. Devotees visit the Shrine also throughout the year to petition the help of St. Gerard.

The St. Gerard Majella Annual Novena takes place every year in St. Josephs Church, Dundalk, Ireland. This annual nine-day novena is the biggest festival of faith in Ireland. St. Joseph’s sponsors the St. Gerard’s Family League, an association of Christians united in prayer for their own and other families, to preserve Christian values in their home and family life.

Legacy

St Gerard’s Church in Wellington, New Zealand, built in 1908, was the first church to be dedicated to him. The Sanctuary of San Gerardo Maiella is a basilica in Materdomini, Italy dedicated to him. In England, there is a church dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and to St. Gerard Majella in Preston, Lancashire. There is also a church dedicated to him in Bristol. The Senior Coroner for Liverpool and Wirral sits at the Gerard Majella Courthouse in Liverpool. In Scotland, there is a church dedicated to St Gerard Majella in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, opened in 1971. In Hollis (in the Borough of Queens), New York City, there is a Catholic parish dedicated to him. In Kirkwood, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis), there is a Catholic parish dedicated to him; the includes a school from prekindergarten to Grade 8. In the Del Rey section of Los Angeles, there is another Catholic parish dedicated to him.

Two towns in Quebec, Canada, are named in his honour: one in the Montérégie region and another in the Lanaudière region. In Ghent (Belgium) a model school was named after Saint Gerard. This school was exhibited on the world exhibition of 1913 in Ghent as a model for Belgium’s future school buildings. In 1914 it was rebuilt after the exhibition with the same stones. Nowadays the Saint Gerard School is used by a charity organisation “Geraarke” (local name) which supports poor people with clothes and food packages. He was featured on an Italian 45-eurocent postage stamp in May 2005.

Prayer to St. Gerard for Motherhood

O good St Gerard, powerful intercessor before God and wonder worker of our day, confidently I call upon you and seek your aid. On Earth you always fulfilled God’s designs, help me now to do the holy will of God. Implore the Master of Life, from whom all paternity proceeds, to render me fruitful in offspring, that I may raise up children to God in this life, and in the world to come, heirs to the Kingdom of His Glory. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard for a Safe Delivery

O great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted child of Mother of God, enkindle within my heart one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love. O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine Master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the patron and protector of expectant mothers. Preserve me from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child which I now carry, that it may see the light of day and receive the purifying and life-giving waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard for Parenthood

St. Gerard, you had deep compassion for those who longed for children. Pray for us in our longing and bring our love to a joyful fulfillment.  Ask our Lord and his Mother Mary to bless us with the birth of a child. Amen

Prayer to St. Gerard for Mother-To-Be

St. Gerard, you were especially sensitive to the needs of mothers. Pray for me and my baby. Ask our good Lord to keep us happy and safe, and bring us to a joyful birth. Amen

Prayer to St. Gerard for Mother with Child

O almighty and Everlasting God Who through the operation of the Holy Christ, didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin Mary to be a worthy dwelling place of Thy divine Son; and, through the operation of the same Holy Ghost, didst sanctify Saint John the Baptist, while still in his mother’s womb; hearken to the prayers of Thy humble servant who implore thee, through the intercession of Saint Gerard, to protect her (me); that it may be cleansed by the saving water of baptism and, after a Christian life on earth, it may with its mother, attain everlasting bliss in Heaven. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard For a Sick Child

O Saint Gerard, who, like the Savior, loved children so tenderly and by your prayers freed many from disease and even from death; graciously look down upon the distressed parents who plead with thee for their child’s health if such be the Will, of God. Present their promise to God to bring up the child a good Christian and to guard it by word and example against the fatal leprosy of sin. This favor we implore thee, O sainted Brother, through the tender love with which Jesus and Mary blessed thy own innocent childhood. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard In Time of Trial

O Sainted Brother Gerard, whose heart went out to the unfortunate; who relieved so many poor, healed so many sick, comforted so many afflicted; behold me worried and troubled as I kneel at thy feet. In vain to turn to men to seek consolation and help; therefore, do I have recourse to thee thou who art so powerful in heaven. Graciously assist me, Saint Gerard, that being freed from this trial or strengthened to bear it for the love of God, I may praise and thank God and serve Him with greater love and fervor. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard For Special Blessings

Dear Saint Gerard we rejoice in thy happiness and glory; we bless the Lord Who endowed thee with the choicest gifts of His Grace; we congratulate thee for corresponding so faithfully with them. Obtain for us, we pray thee, some part of thy angelic purity, thy burning love for Jesus in the Tabernacle, thy tender devotion to Mary Immaculate. In thy brotherly love which made thee the support of the poor, the comforter of the afflicted and the apostle of the most forsaken souls, grant me the favors for which I now pray.  (Here mention them privately) O most Powerful Patron, who hast always helped those who prayed to thee intercede for me before the Throne of God. O Good Saint, to thee I confide my fervent prayers; graciously accept them and, before the end of these days of prayer, let me experience in some way the effects of thy powerful intercession. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard To Obtain Patience

O powerful and everlasting God, Who didst endow Thy faithful Servant Saint Gerard with an invincible patience in the midst of contradictions and persecutions, slanders and infirmities, and didst thereby make him an image of Thy suffering and crucified Son; grant, we beseech Thee, that fixing our eyes on the crucifix, as he did, we may through patience, atone for our sins and prove our love. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard For a Sick Person

O God, Who didst bestow on Saint Gerard the power of healing all kinds of infirmities, deign to glorify Thy Servant, who was so merciful toward human misery, by delivering me from my present sickness. Grant also that, being strengthened in body, I may take greater care to avoid sin and overcome my evil passions, the spiritual diseases that drag so many to everlasting death. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer to St. Gerard In Temporal Needs

O God, Who didst so often give to Saint Gerard power to supply the needs of the poor, grant us the grace which we implore of Thee (here mention your need), through the intercession of Thy most charitable Servant, that being helped in our present need, we may with our whole heart love and serve Thee, our only Treasure in time and eternity. Amen.

Petition to God Through the intersession of St. Gerard

Almighty and loving Father, I thank you for giving St. Gerard to us as a most appealing role model and powerful friend. By his example, he showed us how to love and trust You. You have showered many blessings on those who call upon him. For Your greater glory and my welfare, please grant me the favours which I ask in his name.

(Share your request…)

And you, my powerful patron, intercede for me before the throne of God. Draw near to that throne and do not leave it until you have been heard. O good saint, to you I address my feverent prayers; graciously accept them and let me experience in some way the effects of your powerful intercession. Amen.

Novena to St. Gerard

(Please recite this Novena for 9 days)

Day 1

Saint Gerard, ever full of faith obtain for me that , believing firmly all that the Church of God proposes to my belief, I may strive to secure through a holy life the joys of eternal happiness. Then say Nine Hail Marys, with the following Versicle and Prayer.