BIOGRAPHY of ST GEMMA GALGANI - Get a Free Blog

mine). And had not Jesus asked her whether she would like to be clothed in the habit the missioners wore?
Did He not say to her: ‘You will be a daughter of My Passion'? She longed to anticipate the joy of being a nun
and therefore sought permission to take the vows of religion. She had already taken a vow of perpetual
virginity, but the missioner allowed her to add for private devotion the vows of poverty and obedience until
September 8, when with the consent of her ordinary confessor she might renew them for short periods. As
she herself attests, the day she took these vows was one of the happiest of her life.
Gemma had also asked permission to practise certain corporal mortifications, but the missioner refused his
consent, thinking rightly that God would supply her with abundant opportunities for suffering. On the contrary,
he deprived her of the instruments of penance with which she had been torturing her innocent body.
The missioner's name was Father Gaetano of the Child Jesus. He was an excellent missioner and endowed
with fine qualities. Gemma's meeting him was a blessing for her. And afterwards, even from Heaven, she
remembered his kindness, and paid him back with a generosity of which only the saints are capable.
Before proceeding with Father Gaetano's report upon the extraordinary things which had been thus made
known to him, other happenings must be related which had an important influence upon Gemma's life. The
ways of Providence in her regard are henceforward so manifestly wonderful that we write of them with
diffidence and veneration.
CHAPTER XII
'THE WAYS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE' -A PROVIDENTIAL MEETING
While Gemma was following with such a transport of faith and devotion the practices of the month of the
Sacred Heart in the Church of the Visitation Nuns, a pious woman whom the reader knows by name was
also there for the same purpose. This woman who was afterwards to occupy such an important place in
Gemma's life-to become in fact a second mother to her-had not met her at this time. But she had often seen
her before this and being greatly edified by her devotion had inquired into her identity and had been told that
she was the daughter of the late Signor Galgani, the chemist.
When the month of the Sacred Heart was over, Cecilia Giannini like Gemma went to the mission at the
Cathedral. Without knowing it these two were following one another. In the Cathedral Gemma, accompanied
by her aunt, was seen a few times by her future adopted mother, but the matter ended there.
A few days after the mission Cecilia Giannini received a letter from Father Gaetano, who was staying in the
Retreat near Lucca, informing her that he would call upon her on a certain day and asking her to find Gemma
and tell her that on that day she was to come to see him. Gemma, accompanied by one of her aunts,
therefore came to see Father Gaetano at the Giannini home. After speaking to him for a little while, she left
the house and went to the Church of Santa Maria Bianca. Father Gaetano followed her there and heard her
confession. Before Gemma left Cecilia Giannini had asked her to return the next day. She did so in the
afternoon. Cecilia liked to have Gemma near her, it did her good, she said. She would have liked to have her
as a frequent visitor, especially when she learned that the family was living in such poverty. She could not but
feel a certain veneration for Gemma. However, there were already many in the house, for more than twenty
sat down to dinner every day. But her brother, Matthew Giannini, the head of the house, saved her from her
difficulty by saying: 'Let her come and let her stay for dinner also.' Thus began the relations between Gemma
and the Giannini family.
Before she had met Gemma and when she had got to know who she was and the wretched conditions under
which she lived, Cecilia Giannini had mentioned these facts to her brother. He showed himself very willing to
receive her into the family, for he was a man good-hearted and full of charity. , I knew nothing about the
extraordinary graces,' he deposed in the Processes. 'I only knew that she was a good girl and knowing the
condition of the family I wanted to perform an act of charity. The permission of Gemma's aunts was asked,
and they were very pleased.'
VISITS TO THE GIANNINI HOME
Gemma therefore began to spend a few hours every day at the Giannini home. Subsequently she used to
stay the whole day. God Who, in the designs of His Providence, had arranged that these two holy souls,
Gemma and Cecilia Giannini, should meet on the pathway of life in order to assist one another to sanctify
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