Saint Gianna Beretta Molla

Gianna Beretta was born in Magenta, in the province of Milan, on October 4, 1922. ²³ Franciscan Media says she was the tenth of the thirteen children of Alberto and Maria Beretta. ³ The Holy See biography credits her "excellent parents" with the faith and the clearly Christian education she received, and says she grew up with a strong faith in Providence and a conviction that prayer was both necessary and effective. ²

Through school and university she studied hard and put the faith to work at the same time. She served young people in Catholic Action and worked among the elderly and needy as a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. ² Franciscan Media describes her as a leader in the Catholic Action movement. ³

She earned degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949. ²³ The Holy See biography says she opened a medical clinic in Mesero, a few kilometers from Magenta, in 1950, and specialized in pediatrics at the University of Milan in 1952; Franciscan Media dates the opening of the Mesero clinic to 1952. ²³ From then on, the biography says, she gave special attention to mothers, babies, the elderly and the poor, and she regarded medicine as a mission and practiced it that way. ²

She was not only at work. Both sources mention that she skied and climbed mountains, and the Holy See biography reads them as an expression of her joy in life and her love of creation. ²³ She kept up her service in Catholic Action alongside the practice, especially among the very young. ²

The question of vocation she treated as something to pray about, with the prayers of others as well as her own, and she came to see it too as a gift from God. ² Having chosen marriage, the biography says, she took it up with complete enthusiasm and set out to form a truly Christian family. ² Franciscan Media says she met her husband, the engineer Pietro Molla, in Mesero. ³

A few days before the wedding she wrote to him: "Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the soul of men and women." ¹³ They were married on September 24, 1955, in the Basilica of St. Martin in Magenta. ² Pierluigi was born in November 1956, Mariolina in December 1957, and Laura in July 1959. ² Franciscan Media adds that the two pregnancies that followed ended in miscarriage. ³ The Holy See biography describes the years in between this way: "With simplicity and equilibrium she harmonized the demands of mother, wife, doctor and her passion for life." ²

In September 1961, near the end of the second month of a new pregnancy, she developed a fibroma in her uterus. ² The two sources describe what followed in different words, and both are given here as they stand.

The Holy See biography says that before the required surgical operation, and conscious of the risk that continuing the pregnancy carried, she pleaded with the surgeon to save the life of the child she was carrying, and entrusted herself to prayer and Providence. The child's life was saved, and she thanked God for it. ² Franciscan Media says that doctors found both a child and a tumor in her uterus, and that she allowed the surgeons to remove the tumor but not to perform the complete hysterectomy they recommended, which would have killed the child. ³

She carried the child for seven more months. The biography speaks of "incomparable strength of spirit" in those months and of unrelenting dedication to her work as a mother and as a doctor. ² It also records a particular fear: she worried that the baby might be born in pain, and asked God to prevent it. ²

A few days before the birth was due, the biography says, she was ready to give her life to save her child's, and it quotes her: "do not hesitate: choose the child - I insist on it. Save him." ²

Gianna Emanuela was born on the morning of April 21, 1962; Franciscan Media says the birth took place at the hospital in Monza. ²³ Franciscan Media says that post-operative complications then caused an infection, and that the following week she died at home. ³ The Holy See biography says that, despite all efforts and treatments to save both of them, she died on the morning of April 28 "amid unspeakable pain," after saying over and over, "Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you." ² She was thirty-nine. ²

Her funeral, the biography says, was an occasion of profound grief, faith and prayer, and she was buried in the cemetery at Mesero. ²³ The daughter she gave birth to went on, according to Franciscan Media, to become a physician herself. ³

Eleven years after her death, at the Sunday Angelus of September 23, 1973, Paul VI spoke of her. In the Holy See's English he called her "a young mother from the diocese of Milan, who, to give life to her daughter, sacrificed her own, with conscious immolation." ² The biography reads the phrase as a deliberate reference to Christ on Calvary and in the Eucharist. ²

John Paul II beatified her on April 24, 1994, during the International Year of the Family. ² He canonized her ten years later, on May 16, 2004, with five others: Luigi Orione, Hannibal Mary Di Francia, José Manyanet y Vives, Nimatullah Kassab Al-Hardini and Paola Elisabetta Cerioli. ¹ In the homily he said that this "holy mother of a family remained heroically faithful to the commitment she made on the day of her marriage," and prayed that through her example "our age rediscover the pure, chaste and fruitful beauty of conjugal love, lived as a response to the divine call!" ¹

Franciscan Media lists Saint Gianna Beretta Molla as a patron saint of doctors, of unborn children and of wives. ³ Each fits the life the sources describe. She was a physician and surgeon who specialized in pediatrics and took particular care of mothers and babies, a wife whose canonization homily centers on her marriage, and a mother whose last pregnancy is the reason most people know her name. ¹²³

Her liturgical feast is April 28, the day she died in 1962. ²³ Franciscan Media states that date for the feast, though it runs its own Saint of the Day entry on her on April 19. ³

Most of the life the sources describe is ordinary, in the good sense. She worked in a small town clinic, kept up her volunteering, went skiing, married an engineer she had met in Mesero and had three children in under three years. ²³ The Holy See biography makes a point of the joy in it, mentioning her happiness during the engagement and her great joy at the birth of her first child. ² She treated her medical work as a mission and her marriage as a vocation, and she prayed over that vocation before she chose marriage. ²

Then came the fibroma, and the sources speak quietly about the months that followed. They mention her prayer, her trust in Providence, her work as a mother and a doctor, and her fear that the baby would be born in pain. ² She was also a doctor, and the biography says she was conscious of the risk that continuing the pregnancy brought. ²

Nothing in the sources makes the ending easy. A child was saved, and three young children and a newborn lost their mother a week later. ²³ Her husband was left a widower with four children under six. ² The Holy See biography does not soften her death, and says that it came amid unspeakable pain. ²

John Paul II chose to remember her through a love letter, written days before her wedding, and to hold her up as a witness to married love. ¹ The Holy See biography, for its part, spends as long on the clinic, the volunteering and the engagement as it does on the pregnancy, and Franciscan Media lists her as patron of doctors and wives as well as of unborn children. ²³