BIOGRAPHY of ST GEMMA GALGANI - Get a Free Blog

towards the end of her life, she used to read, with great fervor, a book containing the Psalms and the
Gospels, and also “The Preparation for Death”, by St. Alphonsus Liguori.'
‘I am full of misery,' she used to say, ' but with Jesus I can do all things.' She hoped abundantly in the Mercy
of God, and her great love for Jesus allowed no room for the slightest doubt of His Goodness, nor could
anything prevent her from casting herself full of trust into the arms of God, there to rest upon His Heart. 'Thy
Mercy, 0 Lord,' she used to say, ' is the anchor of all my hopes. I realize that the Mercy of God is greater than
my ingratitude.' 'How good Jesus always is!' she continued. 'I desire never to leave Jesus. I want to offer Him
all I have; I want to offer Him myself. But what do I possess? Nothing, except my sins, my miseries, my great
self-love. And this is the gift that I make to Jesus. But He will have compassion on my misery. He will give me
strength; He will give me grace.'
This beautiful humility was united to a filial confidence, enabling her to say: 'I have found something I can
give to Thee, 0 Jesus, my own nothingness.' 'I fall and fall and fall again, but Jesus is with me.' 'Sometimes it
seems to me that Jesus can no longer forgive me. And then I shrug my shoulders, and think no more about
sin.' , When I remember my sins I am ashamed to seek and expect Heaven after having refused it so many
times. But as soon as I look at my Jesus Crucified, I cannot do less, even with my many sins, than long for it
ardently.'
And what had Gemma to fear, knowing that she was so loved by Jesus, and that she loved Him so much in
return? 'I have found a Jesus,' she used to say, ' Who so captivates my heart that it cannot but long for Him.'
Jesus opened the doors of the future and showed her the sorrows that awaited her. 'You tell me,' she
answered, ' that You art preparing for me a future full of suffering. But the future is in the hands of God, and
therefore I am not terrified. You have so much, but I have nothing wherewith to repay Thee.' 'I have such
confidence in Thee, ° Jesus, that even if I should see the gates of Hell open and myself on the edge of the
abyss, I should not despair. And even if I should see both Heaven and Hell leagued against me, I should not
give up hope of Mercy, because I should still trust in Thee.'
Gemma so endeavored to instill these sentiments in others that Father Gentile Pardini could declare ,
Gemma was an apostle, and sought to excite others to practise the virtues she possessed herself, especially
the virtue of Christian hope .... '
It was from this abandonment that came Gemma's imperturbable equanimity in the face of every happening.
She was in the arms of her Father, what then had she to fear? 'Even in her anxieties,' continued Father
Pardini, ' and in the midst of the most terrible assaults of the Devil, she remained so resigned, so calm, so
content, that she seemed always to be like a child at play.' From this abandonment also came her intense
desire to fulfill always and in all things the adorable Will of God. 'Her motto,' said a witness in the Processes,
'was to fulfill the Will of God always and in everything.'
Since therefore the heart of Gemma was so well disposed and adorned with the flowers and the fruits of
such beautiful virtues, God was enabled to bestow upon her His best gifts. The soil was well prepared to
receive them and to make them fructify for her own welfare and the welfare of souls and for the glory of God.
CHAPTER XVIII
HER STRUGGLE AGAINST THE POWERS OF DARKNESS -BEGINNING OF THE ATTACK
God loves souls; the Devil hates them, and hates them the more venomously the more they are favored by
Heaven. That Gemma was very dear to God is clear to anyone who has read these pages thus far, and the
hatred of the Devil for this soul that caused him so much confusion, will not surprise the reader. The account
of the way the powers of evil attacked this ingenuous and innocent child will seem almost legendary, but the
facts have been vouched for by persons worthy of belief. That these facts and the apparitions to be referred
to, were anything but imaginary, is clear from the observable effects they produced in Gemma.
The enemy of souls began his attack upon her very early. Perhaps from her first steps along the road to
sanctity the Devil guessed the shameful defeats he would suffer through her, and decided to lose no time.
Before she went to live with the Gianninis and while she was still in her own home, she was already
accustomed to terrifying apparitions of the spirit of evil, and had experienced in her virginal body those
altogether undesirable effects which often accompany his presence.
75