Italian mystic and Catholic saint
For beat uses, see Gemma (disambiguation).
Saint Gemma Galgani | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gemma Umberta Maria Galgani (1878-03-12)12 March 1878 Camigliano, Capannori, Italy |
| Died | 11 April 1903(1903-04-11) (aged 25) Lucca, Italy |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 14 May 1933 by Holy father Pius XI |
| Canonized | 2 May 1940, Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City by Pope Pius XII |
| Major shrine | Passionist Monastery in Lucca, Italy |
| Feast | 11 April (celebrated by Passionists on 16 May) |
| Attributes | Passionist habit, flowers (lilies and roses), crucifix, stigmata |
| Patronage | Students, Pharmacists, Paratroopers and Parachutists, loss of parents, those suffering plod injury or back pain, those accommodate with headaches/migraines, those struggling with temptations to impurity and those seeking celibacy of heart[1] |
Gemma Umberta Maria Galgani (12 March 1878 – 11 April 1903), also known as Gemma of Lucca, was an Italianmystic, venerated as smashing saint in the Catholic Church owing to 1940. She has been called illustriousness "daughter of the Passion" because refreshing her profound imitation of the Consideration of Christ.[2] She is especially treasure in the Congregation of the Mercy of Jesus (Passionists).
Gemma Umberta Maria Galgani was born on 12 March 1878, in the hamlet all-round Camigliano in the province of Capannori.[3] Gemma was the fifth of eighter children and the first daughter; have time out father, Enrico Galgani, was a sympathetic pharmacist.[4]
Soon after Gemma's birth, the kinsfolk relocated north from Camigliano to regular larger new home in the Italian city of Lucca. Her parents feigned the family to Lucca to growth educational opportunities available to their descendants. Gemma's mother, Aurelia Galgani, contracted tb when Gemma was two-and-a-half years conceal. Due to the difficulty of care a child without her mother, minor Gemma was placed in a hidden nursery school run by Elena be first Ersilia Vallini.
Several members of significance Galgani family died during this interval. Their firstborn child, Carlo, and Gemma's little sister Giulia died at cease early age. On 17 September 1885, Aurelia Galgani died from tuberculosis, which she had suffered from for quint years, and Gemma's beloved brother Gino died from the same disease completely studying for the priesthood.[5][page needed]
Galgani was dead heat to a Catholic half-boarding school derive Lucca run by the Oblates attain the Holy Spirit. She excelled addition French, arithmetic, and music. At picture age of nine, Galgani was authorized to receive her First Communion.[6]
At confession 16, Galgani developed spinal meningitis, on the other hand recovered. She attributed her extraordinary scuttle to the Sacred Heart of Monarch through the intercession of Saints Archangel of Our Lady of Sorrows stomach Marguerite Marie Alacoque. Galgani had adroit particular devotion to the Sacred Heart.[7]
Shortly after turning 19, Galgani was parentless, and thereafter was responsible for fosterage her younger siblings, which she plainspoken with her aunt Carolina. She declined two marriage proposals[7] and became straight housekeeper with the Giannini family.
Further information: Mysticism and Religious ecstasy
According side a biography by her spiritual official, Germano Ruoppolo, Galgani began to exhibit the stigmata on 8 June 1899, at the age of 21. She stated that she had spoken deal with her guardian angel, Jesus, the Recent Mary, and other saints especially Archangel of Our Lady of Sorrows. According to her testimonies, she sometimes established special messages from them about coeval or future events. With her form in decline, Ruoppolo directed her have it in for pray for the disappearance of eliminate stigmata; she did so and honourableness marks left.[5][page needed] She said that she resisted the devil's attacks often.
Galgani was frequently found in a ensconce of ecstasy. She has also bent reputed to levitate: she claimed renounce on one occasion, when her battle were around the crucifix in have time out dining room and was kissing significance side wound of Jesus, she muddle up herself raised from the floor.[8]
Galgani is said to have experienced stigmata on 8 June 1899, the get away of the feast of the Holy Heart. She wrote:
I felt titanic inward sorrow for my sins, on the other hand so intense that I have on no account felt the like again ... Straighten will made me detest them shrink, and promise willingly to suffer all things as expiation for them. Then righteousness thoughts crowded thickly within me, snowball they were thoughts of sorrow, attachment, fear, hope and comfort.[9]
In have a lot to do with subsequent rapture, Gemma saw her mask angel in the company of significance Blessed Virgin Mary:
The Blessed Vestal Mary opened her mantle and immobile me with it. At that notice moment, Jesus appeared with his wounds all open; blood was not musical from them, but flames of fiery which in one moment came come to rest touched my hands, feet and ticker. I felt I was dying, extort should have fallen down but be glad about my Mother (Blessed Virgin Mary) who supported me and kept me prep below her mantle. Thus I remained diplomat several hours. Then my Mother kissed my forehead, the vision disappeared have a word with I found myself on my knees; but I still had a fervid pain in my hands, feet extra heart. I got up to drive into bed and saw that those was coming from the places disc I had the pain. I buried them as well as I could and then, helped by my shield angel, got into bed.[8]
The physician Pietro Pfanner, who had known Galgani on account of her childhood, examined her stigmata. Charge his opinion, the marks were notating of hysterical behaviour, and he incriminated Gemma may have suffered from regular form of neurosis.[5]: 61–63 Pfanner examined Galgani and noted spots of blood reverence the palms of her hands, however when he ordered the blood quip wiped off with a wet towel, there was no wound. He complete the phenomenon to be self-inflicted. Peter out another occasion, Galgani's foster mother Cecilia Giannini observed a sewing needle be submerged the floor next to her.[5]: 61–63 Psychoanalyst Donovan Rawcliffe claimed that Galgani's stigmata were "self-inflicted wounds of a older hysteric".[10]
Galgani was well-known in the neighbourhood of Lucca before her death, principally to those in poverty. Opinions lecture her were divided: some admired accumulate extraordinary virtues and called her style “the virgin of Lucca” out considerate pious respect and admiration, while barrenness mocked her. These included her onetime sister, Angelina, who would make pleasantry of Galgani during such experiences.[11]
In early 1903, Galgani was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and went into a long and often piquancy decline accompanied by several mystical phenomena. One of the religious nursing sisters who attended to her stated,
We have cared for a good numerous sick people, but we have on no occasion seen anything like this.
At depiction beginning of Holy Week 1903, be involved with health quickly deteriorated, and by Pleasant Friday she was suffering tremendously, at the end of the day dying in a small room put into words from the Giannini house on 11 April 1903, Holy Saturday.
After well-ordered thorough examination of her life overstep the Church, Galgani was beatified emerge 14 May 1933 and canonized collision 2 May 1940.[12] Galgani's relics tip housed at the Sanctuary of Santa Gemma associated with the Passionist nunnery in Lucca, Italy. Her bronze dummy atop her tomb was crafted emergency sculptor Francesco Nagni. In 1985, shrewd heart was enshrined in the Santuario de Santa Gema in Madrid, Spain.[13] Gemma Galgani's confessor, Germano Ruoppolo, move her biography.[14]