St Gianna Beretta Molla

Recalling St Gianna’s canonization

Today in 2004, Pope Saint John Paul II canonized Gianna Beretta Molla. Our patron saint is an incredible witness and builder of peace. Saint Gianna’s feast day is April 28.

Saint Gianna is not only a holy person in love with her Savior, but a wife, mother, and physician who continues to show us that it possible to follow the Gospel closely and faithfully. She is known as a patron for ProLife work and marriage. In fact, our pregnancy resource center in New Haven (CT) is named for this great woman and disciple of Jesus, Saint Gianna.

The sainted pope said in his homily:

… simple, but more than ever, significant messenger of divine love. In a letter to her future husband a few days before their marriage, she wrote: “Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the soul of men and women”.

Following the example of Christ, who “having loved his own… loved them to the end” (Jn 13: 1), this holy mother of a family remained heroically faithful to the commitment she made on the day of her marriage. The extreme sacrifice she sealed with her life testifies that only those who have the courage to give of themselves totally to God and to others are able to fulfil themselves.

Through the example of Gianna Beretta Molla, may our age rediscover the pure, chaste and fruitful beauty of conjugal love, lived as a response to the divine call!

St Gianna Benefit Dinner in New Haven 2018

Join us for the St Gianna Benefit Dinner

St. Gianna Pregnancy Resource Center will host its third annual benefit dinner on Sunday, April 29 from 1-5 p.m. at Amarante’s Sea Cliff (62 Cove Street) in New Haven. Tickets are $45 and include appetizers, a buffet dinner, dessert and soft drinks.

Our speaker and honoree, Christian Slattery, is the organizer of the first pregnancy crisis center in NYC. This is the busiest center in NY at this time. Also being honored, is the pro-life Choose Life at Yale (CLAY) organization that founded the Vita et Veritas Conference to bring a bigger message of pro-life to Yale.

For more information, TO ORDER tickets, or to make a donation (no donation is too small) please visit www.giannacenter.org.

Please make reservations by April 15.

St Gianna Benefit Dinner

Join us for the St Gianna Benefit Dinner

For more information, TO ORDER tickets, or to make a donation (no donation is too small) please visit www.giannacenter.org.

Please make reservations by April 15.

St Gianna Beretta Molla

Saint Gianna wrote various affirmations on the significance and value of a doctor’s mission on a prescription pad and titled it “The beauty of our Mission.”

“In one way or another, everyone in society works in the service of humanity. Physicians have opportunities that a priest does not have, for our mission does not end when medicine is no longer of help. There still remains the soul that must be brought to God. Jesus says, “Whoever visits the sick is helping me.” This is a priestly mission. Just as the priests can touch Jesus, so we doctors touch Jesus in the bodies of our patients: in the poor, the young, the old, and children. Jesus makes himself seen in our midst. Many doctors offer themselves to him. When you have finished your earthly profession, if you have done this well, You will enjoy divine life ‘because I was sick and you healed me.”

Four Norms for doctors

+To do our part well. Study our science well. Today there is a seeking after money.
+Be honest. Be doctors of faith.
+Have a loving care, thinking of each one as a brother. Have a certain delicacy.
+Never forget the patients soul. We who have a right to a certain confidence must be attentive never to profane the soul. This would be a betrayal. Take care to use superficial language. Instead always do well.

Prayer of St. Gianna

Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to befall me,make me only know Your will. My most sweet Jesus, infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls,and in a particular way of the most weak, most miserable, most infirm which You carry with special tenderness between Your divine arms,I come to You to ask You, through the love and merits of Your Sacred Heart, the grace to comprehend and to do always Your holy will, the grace to confide in You, the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in Your loving divine arms.

HT:DB

St Gianna Beretta Molla

Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, whose feast day is today and who is widely considered one this century’s key saints.

She said, “The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that he, in his goodness, sends to us day after day.”

Blessings to you on Saint Gianna’s feast!

St Gianna Center, New Haven blessed today by Hartford Archbishop

The brand NEW Saint Gianna Center of New Haven, CT was officially and blessed today, a beautiful spring day.

More than a 100 people gathered on the corner of Whitney Avenue and Trumbull Street for the dedication followed by a reception at St Mary’s Church. The Archbishop of Harford, The Most Reverend Henry J. Mansell, blessed the Center.

This pregnancy care center provides care, support and education to pregnant mothers and men who are learning to be a father.

The Center is named for the 20th century wife, mother, physician and saint, Gianna Beretta Molla, who died of cancer a week after giving birth to her last child, Gianna Emmanuela. She was beatified on April 24, 1994 and canonized on May 16, 2004. Today is the birthday of Gianna Emmanuela.

As a light in darkness, the Saint Gianna Center is a pregnancy resource center that seeks to provide housing, financial and legal aid, emergency food and transportation, pre-natal care, adoption information, education and more.

Volunteers are always welcome to join in the work of helping pregnant women. Notable is the involvement of the local chapter of the Fraternity of Saint Dominic (known to many as the Third Order Dominican Laity), a group of women and men who follow the life and teaching of Order of Preachers (the Dominicans).

Contact: info@giannacenter.org; 203-624-BABY.

Saint Gianna, pray for the new center, and all the women who seek help there; pray for all of us.

Relatives of saints attract attention

When I met the son of Saint Gianna Berretta Molla in May I thought, “Wow, this is amazing, I’ve made another connection with a saint!” Of course, in the back of my head I recalled that Saint Gianna’s husband died this past spring. We usually don’t think of saints and their families these days. In some ways, and perhaps in every way, abstracting a saint from his or her biological family (and friends) makes that saint too vague and plastic.

It wasn’t until recent times that technology opened a new facet of a holy person’s life by making it possible to have more accurate portraits and voice recognition. Video and audio files reveal the concrete person so as not to rely exclusively upon someone’s “recollections” or hagiography no matter how accurate these memories or details may be. How different are our spiritual relationships with the likes of Saints Padre Pio, Josemaria, Blesseds John XXIII, Mother Teresa, Marianne Cope, and the Servant of God John Paul II from the likes of Saints Benedict, Dominic, Francis and Agatha! Why mention this? I was reading the local newspaper’s obits today and stumbled upon the death notice of Dorothy Lorraine Bessette Gazzola, 89, the grand niece of Blessed Andre Bessette. The family published Bessette-Gazzola’s visiting her grand uncle in Montreal when she was a child. She knew a saint! She hugged and kissed a saint! She could relate personally with saint! How great is that!!!

Blessed Andre is due to be canonized a saint in October.