BIOGRAPHY of ST GEMMA GALGANI - Get a Free Blog

heard to say repeatedly. 'Do not think that I want to do aught else but Thy holy Will. You know the truth, for
You see my heart. o Jesus, if it be Thy good pleasure, give me a little respite! I feel that the struggle is almost
too much for me. So please grant me a little rest, Jesus.' And Jesus heard her prayer, but the moments of
peace in which He and her Guardian Angel used to encourage her to persevere bravely, were short and rare.
The storm would burst upon her more furiously than before. I t was in this manner that Gemma, an innocent
victim, passed her days and nights on her bed of sorrow.
But the abandonment had to be absolutely complete. It would seem that she was receiving too much
assistance, too much strength from Holy Communion, and she had to make a sacrifice to Jesus even of this.
Mother Gemma Giannini deposed:
'During her sickness she continued to receive Holy Communion every day. Because of the strain on her
health we wished to prevent her from receiving, but Monsignor Volpi told us to allow her to go, saying that
this was the only consolation that remained to her. Early in the morning I accompanied her to the Church of
the Rose and afterwards came back home with her. A fortnight before her death, I took her to the Church as
usual, but she was so weak that she was unable to go to the rails, and in consequence she did not receive
Holy Communion that day, and this was a great sacrifice for her.'
It was to this Church also that Mother Gemma (then Euphemia Giannini) used to go with Gemma for the
devotions of the month of March in honor of St. Joseph. Gemma always had a special devotion to this patron
of a happy death, and desired to make sure of his powerful assistance in the last moments of her life.
Euphemia Giannini looked after Gemma with sisterly care, and in giving evidence in the Processes spoke
with particular emotion of the following incident. During one of Gemma's violent attacks of coughing, that
seemed to be on the point of suffocating her, Euphemia was standing by the bed lovingly attentive. Gemma
looked up at her lovingly to say: 'Learn, Euphemia, how Jesus desires to be loved.'
Gemma lived for a month at her new home, her last earthly dwelling-place. During this period Father Peter
Paul Moreschini came to give her his blessing for the last time. She was overjoyed at seeing once more one
whom God Himself had won to her cause and who had helped her so much in the days of trial. Father Peter
Paul Moreschini gave the following deposition in the Processes regarding this visit: 'I heard her confession
and knew that she was in a state of unmitigated suffering. The afflictions she was subjected to by the devils
were unceasing day or night. Her illness, which according to the doctors was tuberculosis, had reduced her
to an extremely weak condition, and I was persuaded that her death could not be far off.'
THE GATES OF HEAVEN OPENING TO RECEIVE HER
Gemma's death was indeed near. Heaven was about to open and welcome her within its gates for ever-that
abode of the Blessed she had sighed after in life. "Make haste, Q Jesus; give me strength and make haste,'
she was heard to exclaim in ecstasy, 'but shorten the time that is now so wearisome to me. Break this chain
that binds me to earth and holds me back from Heaven. Let me come to Thee!' And again: '0 Paradise, in
thee there will be neither night nor darkness, nor changes of things or time. . . . 0 Paradise, where God of
God and Light of Light dwells. It is illumined by the Sun of Justice and the Sacred Heart will fill it with divine
brightness; for the consolation and joy of Heaven is indeed to contemplate God, the King of Kings. . . . 0
Paradise, how long have I desired thee! Who can ever describe thee? A desire that never annoys, a plenty
that one never grows weary of. . . . What happiness, 0 Jesus, to dwell in Thy Paradise! '
On hearing these outpourings, Cecilia Giannini had asked Gemma: 'Why do you desire so greatly to go to
Heaven? Have you not got Jesus here? ' 'Yes,' she answered, ' but I do not see Him as He is in Heaven! One
day I did see Him a little better, but my eyes were burnt by the sight.' 'And then I remembered,' continued
Cecilia Giannini in her deposition, 'that I had once noticed that her eyes were sore and red, and that I had
scolded her, saying: "Even your eyes are sore. There is not a bit of you healthy." But she kept silent, and on
the following. day her eyes were all right.'
Holy Week of 1903 came, and it was to be for Gemma indeed a week of the Passion. From the pains she
suffered in her body, from the deathly pallor of her face and the anguish of abandonment she experienced in
her soul, she seemed, according to the witnesses, an image of Christ dying on the Cross. A life of sorrow and
martyrdom could have only such an end. She had longed and prayed to die on a great feast and her prayer
was granted. She died on the Feast of Feasts, Easter.
On Wednesday of that Holy Week she was allowed to have even on her bed of sorrow a slight foretaste of
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