BIOGRAPHY of ST GEMMA GALGANI - Get a Free Blog

A little less than a month later, however, Gemma's health had shown no improvement. The doctors tried a
new operation and applied the cauterizing iron to twelve places along her spine. The heroic girl, more
solicitous for the preservation of her modesty than for the restoration of her bodily health, underwent this
operation without the aid of a general anesthetic. This happened on January 4, 1899. On January 28,
another complication set in to aggravate the condition of the poor sufferer. A tumour on her head caused
violent spasmodic pains. The doctors again met in consultation, but on account of her extreme weakness,
decided that nothing could be done for her and that she was doomed.
Nothing remained for Gemma now except to wait for death in the midst of her sufferings. On February 2 she
received the Viaticum. 'I went to confession,' she said, ' and then waited for the moment when I should be
united with Jesus. 'But how slow it was! The doctors, believing that I could no longer hear, said among
themselves that I could not survive midnight." [Autobiographia, pp. 48, 49] The doctors were wrong and the
malady pursued its relentless course.
On February 19 Monsignor Volpi visited her, and suggested that she should make a novena to St. Margaret
Mary Alacoque. Gemma was not enthusiastic. She would have longed to be cured had not her soul been so
filled with desire for union with God. As she had already said, it did not matter whether she was cured or not
provided Gad was pleased. But in obedience to her confessor, she began the novena. She forgot all about it
the next day, and then began over again, only to forget it in the same way.
DIVINE INTERVENTION
After the second breaking - of the novena, she began for the third time on February 23. This is her own
account of what happened:
‘On the 23rd I began for the third time, that is I intended to begin it, but it was now only a few minutes to
midnight, and I heard the sound of a Rosary and I felt a hand placed on my forehead. A voice then began to
say the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be to the Father, nine times. I hardly knew what to say I was so
weak with pain. The same voice that had said the Our Father, asked me: "Do you wish to be cured ?" "It is all
the same to me," I replied. "Yes," he continued, " you will be cured. Pray with faith to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. Every evening until the end of the novena I shall come and we shall pray together to the Sacred
Heart." "And what about Blessed Margaret Mary?" I asked. " Add the Glory be to the Father three times in
her honour."
‘This I did for nine evenings in succession.
The same person (it was St. Gabriel) came every evening and placed his hand on my forehead as before.
We recited together the Our Father to the Sacred Heart, and then he made me add the Glory be to the
Father in honor of Blessed Margaret Mary. . . . The novena was to end on the first Friday of March. I sent for
the priest the evening before and went to confession. Early the following morning I received Holy
Communion. 0 what happy moments I spent with Jesus! He said to me: "Gemma, do you wish to be cured ?"
I was so overcome with emotion that I could not speak. . . . Poor Jesus! The grace was granted; I was cured.
. . . That morning I wept with Jesus, and Jesus, always good, always tender, was saying: "I shall always be
with you, my daughter. I am thy father," and, pointing to Mary the Mother of Sorrows, " she will be your
mother. A father's help will never be wanting to whoever puts himself in My hands. Although I have taken
away from you every support and consolation on earth, nothing will ever be wanting to you." [Autobiographia,
pp. 50-52]
Gemma was indeed cured. 'Two hours later I got up,' she tells us. 'All at home were weeping for joy. I was
pleased, not because I had regained my health, but because Jesus had chosen me for His daughter. And,
indeed, before leaving me that morning He had said very clearly to my heart:
"To the grace I have given you this morning others greater will be added." ,
Elisa Galgani deposed that after receiving Holy Communion, Gemma asked for her clothes in order to get
dressed. But her aunt was afraid to do her bidding, believing her to be delirious. It was her little sister Julia
who finally gave them to her.
Sister Julia Sestini had also suggested that Gemma ought to make a novena, and she advised that it should
be made to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. The following is what she deposed in the Processes:
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