St. Gemma Galgani
Feast day: April 11
St. Gemma Galgani was a young tertiary of the Passionists who had several profound mystical experiences, to include receiving the stigmata, before dying at age 25 after a life of much suffering.
Born in Camigliano, Italy, in 1878 as Maria Gemma Umberta Pia Galgani, she was the fifth of eight children in the family of a wealthy pharmacist. At a young age, she followed her mother’s example of love of Jesus and devotion to prayer, practices which led St. Gemma to want to imitate Christ, even in enduring his suffering.
In 1885, when Gemma was 7 years old, her mother died of tuberculosis and soon thereafter, two of her brothers died as well. St. Gemma also lost her youngest sister at an early age. She was sent next to a Catholic boarding school in Lucca run by the Sisters of St. Zita, where she excelled in her studies and was considered to be highly intelligent. She wanted to become a nun with the Passionists but was turned down primarily due to her poor health.
Shortly after turning 18, St. Gemma was orphaned, and she became responsible for caring for her younger siblings with the help of an aunt. At this time, still strongly devoted to Christ, she declined two marriage proposals and became a housekeeper. At the age of 20, she developed spinal meningitis but was miraculously healed through the intercession of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and Venerable Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, a young Italian Passionist who was later canonized.
Still, Gemma could not obtain a health certificate allowing her to enter the convent. In addition to this cross, she suffered calumnies and opposition from members of her own family, as well as demonic persecutions. She continuously meditated on the Passion of Christ while leading a life of prayer and penance, and united her sufferings with Christ crucified.
As she grew closer to Christ in prayer, St. Gemma developed an intense closeness to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, so much so that she felt totally consumed by Christ. “Yesterday, in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament I felt myself burning so fiercely that I had to go away,” she wrote. “I felt stunned that so many could stay so close to Jesus and not be reduced to ashes. I felt that I would be consumed. Jesus is such a sweet and irresistible lover; how can one fail to love him with one’s whole heart and soul? How can one not wish to be wholly united in him, and consumed in the flames of his holy love?”
In her work of redemptive suffering for the sins of the world, St. Gemma also experienced many ecstasies, including levitation to a large cross, where she embraced the crucified Jesus. She spoke regularly with Christ, with her guardian angel, and the Blessed Virgin Mary among other saints. She understood from our Lord that it is by suffering that one learns how to love. As a Passionist tertiary, St. Gemma believed that her calling was to suffer much out of love for mankind as Christ did for us.
On June 8, 1899, the eve of the feast of the Sacred Heart, St. Gemma displayed the signs of the stigmata as she felt intense sorrow for her sins. Signs on her hands and feet began to appear at about 8 p.m. on Thursday and lasted until 3 p.m. on Friday. They were carefully examined at the time by her confessor and biographer, the Passionist priest Venerable Germanus, who saw that blood was partly flowing and partly congealing at the openings. Once St. Gemma’s moment of ecstasy was over at 3 p.m., the flow of blood from all five wounds stopped immediately and her lacerated tissues healed, although “whitish marks” remained on her skin.
Throughout her experience of the stigmata, St. Gemma recounts that she first saw her guardian angel and the Blessed Mother, who covered her with her mantle. St. Gemma recalled seeing Christ with open wounds as he touched her hands, feet and heart. She noted that the Blessed Mother kissed her forehead at the end of her experience with the stigmata, while her guardian angel helped her into bed.
In early 1903, St. Gemma was diagnosed with tuberculosis; it was the start of a painful decline, but one accompanied by numerous extraordinary mystical experiences. At the beginning of Holy Week in 1903, her health deteriorated rapidly, and by Good Friday, her suffering had intensified. She died on Holy Saturday.
St. Gemma was beatified in 1933 and canonized in 1940. Her body is buried in a Passionist convent in Lucca, where our Lord told St. Gemma that one would be built through the work of her spiritual director for her sacrifice of not being able to become a nun. Her heart is enshrined in the Passionist church in Madrid.
Reflection
My dear Jesus, thank you for loving us all to the extent of even dying for us on the cross. Help me to follow you in the vocation you choose for me and to be unafraid to suffer for the good of others.
Prayer
O God, who alone are holy
and without whom no one is good,
command, we pray, through the intercession of blessed Gemma,
that we be numbered among those
who do not deserve to be deprived of your glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
