BIOGRAPHY of ST GEMMA GALGANI - Get a Free Blog

'I said to her: "Gemma, I know that a miracle by Blessed Margaret is needed for her canonization. Let her
perform one for you and they will make her a saint." We agreed that this novena should end on the first
Friday of March. The prayers were only a few Our Fathers. I brought her the Manual of our holy foundress. It
was entitled" Preghiamo " and contained the Holy Hour, which I made Gemma promise to practise every first
Thursday of the month. The novena began on Thursday, and I went to visit her on the following Sunday. " Do
you know with whom I am making the novena? " she asked me. "With your aunts or your sisters," I replied.
Smilingly she answered: "No," adding: "With little Confrater Gabriel who comes to help me to say the Our
Fathers." To which I replied: "Isn't the Lord good to send His saints just as He sends our guardian angels to
us?"
‘She spoke so calmly and simply that I could not doubt then and I do not doubt now that she was in her
normal state of mind, and that she was telling the truth. This conversation between Gemma and myself was
short, for the other Sister was talking with Gemma's aunt at the time. I visited her again on the following
Thursday, the eighth day of the novena, when she again stated that Confrater Gabriel had been with her
during all the novena helping her to say the prayers. And I remember with certainty that she told me in these
very words that " Jesus also made His presence felt." She was nevertheless always calm and serene. "Who
knows what will happen to-morrow? " she said to me. And in this way one may say she allowed to appear
her certain conviction of her cure. She was so certain about it that I said: "If anything does happen to-morrow
tell them to call me !" The next day I received a message from our Mother Foundress: "Have you heard?
Gemma is cured and wants to see you. You may go after schoo1." So after four o'clock I went. Her aunts told
me that Gemma had been up, but that for safety's sake they had made her go back to bed. Gemma got up
and sitting on the bed embraced me, saying: " Jesus has granted the grace." Then in a low voice she told me
of the promise she had made to make the Holy Hour every Thursday, explaining that she had made it the
evening before when Jesus had caused a feeling of emotion in her heart.'
This long deposition has been set down in its entirety because it mentions Gemma's great devotion to the
Holy Hour, during the practice of which she was to receive extraordinary favors from God, as will presently
be seen.
The cure that was in everyone's opinion instantaneous and complete, was preceded and accompanied by
heavenly communications. For instance, Letizia Bertuccelli, formerly a servant in the Galgani home, spent a
night near Gemma in order to assist the aunts in taking care of her. In her evidence Letizia stated that on the
night the miracle happened, she saw Gemma's room filled with an unusual bright light, so bright indeed that
she ran to call the aunts that they might see it also. On the same occasion she heard Gemma talking with a
person she could not see. The following are the words she heard: 'If you are cured will you become a nun ?-
Yes, indeed, but now that my parents are dead, I am in want of everything that is necessary .-That does not
matter, because the Lord will provide. And if it should happen that you cannot be a nun or that the nuns
should decline to have you, I shall find persons who will take care of you, and who will give you all that will be
necessary.' These words have been italicized because they seem to be a prophecy of what did actually
happen to Gemma.
Letizia Bertuccelli came to see Gemma the following day and meeting on the stairs a number of people who
were going up and down, she asked if Gemma was dead, but received no answer. When she entered the
room and saw the crumpled bed, she began to think that Gemma was indeed dead and burst out crying. But
Gemma, who had been sitting in a corner of the room, came over to her and said that thanks to the Blessed
Virgin she was alive. Then she continued: 'You were very much afraid yesterday evening! But until I am
professed you will say nothing to anyone about what you saw.' That day, however, was never to arrive.
Gemma's miraculous cure was soon known throughout Lucca, and for a while everyone was talking about it.
For many years she was known as 'la ragazzina della grazia '-the little girl who received the heavenly favour;
by all but a few she was called by that name. Even the doctors who had given her up were astonished when
they heard that she was out of danger and that she was perfectly restored to health. One of them wished to
test the reality of the cure himself and visited her. 'How are you, Gemma? ' he asked. 'So you don't need me
any more.' When Gemma replied that that was so, he went away and never returned.
Another of the doctors was astonished when he heard the news from Elisa Galgani. It was Doctor Tommasi
who had operated on Gemma the day before the cure, and diagnosed the latest complication as 'A purulent
condition of the ear, with acute inflammation affecting the mastoid gland, and with perforation and
inflammation of the membrane of the middle ear.' When he saw Gemma on the evening following the
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