Saint Gemma Galgani

Saint Gemma Galgani was a young laywoman from Lucca in Tuscany, a mystic absorbed in the Passion of Christ. In her short life she endured many illnesses and losses, and she died at the age of twenty-five on Holy Saturday 1903. The Church commemorates her on April 11.

She was born on March 12, 1878, in Camigliano near Lucca, one of the eight children of the pharmacist Enrico Galgani and Aurelia, née Landi. A month later the family moved to Lucca. When Gemma was eight, her mother died. The girl was taught by the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit under the eye of their foundress, Saint Elena Guerra. In 1887, on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, she received her First Holy Communion.

The following years brought further blows. Her brother Gino, a seminarian, died, and in 1897 so did her father, after whose death the children were left destitute. Gemma lived with an aunt in Camaiore, but when a proposal of marriage came, she returned to Lucca, because she wanted to belong to Jesus alone. She fell gravely ill with a disease of the spine and for many months lay partly paralyzed. During that time she read the life of the Passionist Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. In March 1899, after a novena to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, she recovered her health in a way that was regarded as miraculous.

She longed for religious life, but no convent accepted her. She asked for a place among the Passionist Nuns in Tarquinia; her poor health stood in the way, as did the talk surrounding the extraordinary phenomena in her life. She remained a laywoman and made the vows of the Passionist Nuns only privately.

On the eve of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, June 8, 1899, she received, as witnesses testified, the stigmata: wounds in her hands, feet, and side. For a time they opened every week, from Thursday evening until three o’clock on Friday afternoon. Witnesses also told of ecstasies in which she spoke with Jesus, Mary, and her Guardian Angel. Not everyone believed her. The Passionist Father Germano Ruoppolo, her spiritual director, came to Gemma’s defense, and at the bidding of her spiritual guides she described her experiences in her Autobiography, her Diary, and her letters.

In 1899 she became friends with the Giannini family of Lucca, who soon took her into their home as a daughter. Cecilia Giannini became a second mother to her. Gemma helped in the household, cared for the sick, and spent long hours in prayer. In 1902 she fell ill with tuberculosis. She died in Lucca on April 11, 1903, on Holy Saturday.

Pius XI beatified her on May 14, 1933, and Pius XII canonized her on May 2, 1940. In declaring the heroism of her virtues in 1931, the Holy See noted that it was passing no judgment on her extraordinary gifts. The Roman Martyrology singles out in her the contemplation of the Lord’s Passion and patience in bearing suffering. The saint’s body rests in Lucca, in the shrine at the monastery of the Passionist Nuns.