BIOGRAPHY of ST GEMMA GALGANI - Get a Free Blog

very near one another]
A little while after Gemma wrote to Monsignor Volpi:
‘Forgive me if I trouble you this morning. If you were to see how many have changed their attitude towards
me since that day! It seems to me that I can almost see the thoughts that are passing in the minds of others.
Yesterday evening Jesus let me know that many people are thinking evil of me. One thinks that I am a
somnambulist, others think that I am ill, others again that it is I myself who scratch the marks in my hands
and feet. Jesus told me that He has permitted all these things to happen, and that He will permit even worse
things. Nevertheless He has assured me that by means of the Father He will convince my confessor, but that
He will permit the other persons to continue in the same frame of mind." [Lettere ed estasi, pp. 109-110]
In another letter she deals with the attempt to examine the phenomena:
‘If you had been alone Jesus would indeed have convinced you. Today when I began to make the exercise of
the Three Hours' Agony I understood what had happened to me. Yesterday evening Jesus let me know that
you would come, but I did not want you to come because I was ashamed. In the end I conquered myself. At
first I felt great repugnance; then Jesus said to me: "Do you not remember that I told you some time ago that
a day would come when no one would believe you. That day has come! Oh, how much more acceptable you
are to me when you are despised than when everyone regarded you as a saint !" Jesus then told me that
there was another person with you, a doctor, and that he saw nothing .... To-day Jesus desired that I should
make a sacrifice, and I have willingly done so; let them think that it is hysteria, as the doctor says it is;
because they call it that, Jesus loves me all the more. However, He said that in comparison with what I must
yet go through this is nothing. Later when Jesus came back He told me that I was to tell you that He would
cause the things in such a way that no one would perceive them. Jesus said that He is satisfied that some
persons have seen what has taken place but that for the present He wishes no one else to see those things.
You will be convinced.' [Lettere ed estasi, p. 110.]
NEW PROOFS. FURTHER HESITATION
The sight of the Stigmata that evening, and the letters which he received from Gemma, only increased
Monsignor Volpi's perplexity. Had he been too hasty in believing the doctor, even though he was a man for
whom he had the greatest esteem, or in trusting to what he himself had seen and heard? Later on when
these events were but memories, he wrote: 'To-day after some years of experience I am persuaded that such
things are permitted by God in order to give mankind a palpable and external proof of an interior and spiritual
action which He sometimes produces in privileged souls.'
That same September Father Gaetano arrived at the Gianninis' to take up Gemma's cause once more. He
was much moved by the account of what had taken place. However, he was to see these mysterious
phenomena again. As a matter of fact he tried the doctor's test and afterwards gave the following account of
it to Monsignor Volpi: 'There were actual wounds in her hands; I say actual wounds because they were deep,
and although they were washed three or four times by us they did not disappear.'
Father Peter Paul also was able to witness, even frequently, the marvellous things which God accomplished
in His servant, and to describe them to Monsignor Volpi, who then asked him to examine Gemma when an
occasion offered, and for this purpose gave him every authority. If the depositions of these two priests had
influenced Monsignor in Gemma's favour, some experiments made by a priest altogether opposed to her
turned him in the other direction, and so he could come to no decision.
The Gianninis' confidence in Gemma was soon restored. Chevalier Matthew indeed deposed: , In the
ecstasy that followed, we did not think of repeating the test made by the doctor; seeing also the other
wounds, we were convinced that they were really the work of God, and we unhesitatingly accepted Gemma's
explanation of the failure of the doctor's test.'
What was the result of what happened on that September 8? Not what Monsignor Volpi had expected, nor
what the doctor expected. But one result was an increase of sorrow and humiliation for Gemma. However,
this is what usually accompanies extraordinary gifts from God.
At Lourdes after the sixth apparition, Jacomet, the Chief of Police, determined to put an end to what he
called a profit-making .comedy. He so intimidated Bernadette's father, that he forbade his daughter to go
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