ST GEMMA GALGANI | KAIROS GLOBAL | MARCH 2021

Author: Abigail Pinto

St. Gemma Galgani, who is popularly known as the Lily of Lucca, was a lay mystic often referred to as the ‘Daughter of Passion,’ for her intense replication of the Passion of Christ. She was born on March 12, 1878 and lived in a small Italian town near Lucca. Born to devout parents, Gemma developed a love for prayer and a desire to reach heaven at a very young age. Sacrifice and suffering too began for her quite young. Like all children, Gemma loved her mother with all her little heart. Unfortunately when she was only eight, she lost her mother to tuberculosis. 

She received her First Communion at the age of 9 and frequented confessions as part of her spiritual discipline. Gemma studied at a school run by the Sisters of St. Zita, where she was loved by her teachers and fellow students. Under the guidance and direction of the good sisters she acquired a greater taste for prayer, and a tender devotion to the Passion of Our Lord on which she began to meditate daily. Her love for the Mother of God was always deep and intense, the more so as she had lost her earthly mother. ‘If God has taken away my mother,’ she would often say, ‘he has left me his own.’

Gemma was always eager to learn more about Christ and was intensely drawn to the passion and sufferings of the crucified Lord. Jesus was everything to her and her heart was all on fire for love of him, and out of this love for him she had a great desire to suffer in union with him, for the salvation of souls. Unfortunately, being persistently ill Gemma had to quit school before completing the course of her study. At the tender age of sixteen, Gemma developed spinal meningitis and suffered a great deal, but recovered. She credited this cure to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the intercession of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, and St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque. Although cured of meningitis, Gemma continued to suffer physically, because of which her earnest desire to become a nun was turned down.

 At the age of eighteen, Gemma was orphaned and was left with the responsibility of bringing up her younger siblings, which she did along with her aunt. Gemma loved the poor immensely and always reached out to them. She refused to marry because she desired to be solely with God, to pray and speak only to him. Gemma was also often tormented by the devil, but she took up severe penances and sufferings in reparation which in turn brought her special graces and mystical experiences. One such mystical experience was the vision of the Blessed Mother and the crucified Lord, after which, Gemma desired only to suffer more intensely. She also often saw her guardian angel and spoke to him. 

At the age of twenty-one on June 8, 1899, during prayer Gemma felt pain and blood coming from her hands, feet and heart. These were the marks of the stigmata. Each Thursday evening, Gemma would fall into ecstasy, the wounds would appear and blood would ooze. The stigmata remained until Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. When the bleeding would stop, the wounds would close, and only white marks would remain in place of the deep gashes. 

Gemma was often found in a state of bliss and on one occasion she was believed to have levitated. Her words spoken during these moments were recorded by her confessor and a relative. At the age of 25, Gemma was diagnosed with tuberculosis to which she succumbed on April 11, 1903. 

Not very long after her death, St. Gemma Galgani was beatified on May 14, 1933 by Pope Pius XI and canonised on May 2, 1940, by Pope Pius XII. She is the patron saint against temptations, against the death of parents, against tuberculosis, of students and of pharmacists. Her feast day is celebrated on April 11.