St. Gianna Beretta Molla, pray for us!

April 28, 2020

On April 28^th, we remember St. Gianna Beretta Molla, patron of mothers, physicians, and unborn children. Born in Italy in 1922, Gianna was the 10^th of 13 children. Faith was an important part of family life. They prayed the Rosary every day, a practice that Gianna continued when she and her husband had children of their own.

Gianna earned degrees in medicine and surgery, specializing in pediatrics and opening her own clinic in 1952. She married Pietro Molla in 1955, and they had three children. When Gianna became pregnant with her fourth child, doctors found that she had both a baby and a tumor in her uterus. She allowed the doctors to remove the tumor but refused the hysterectomy that would have killed her child. Gianna delivered a healthy baby, but complications resulted in a fatal infection for Gianna. The baby was named Gianna Emanuela, and she grew up to be a doctor, too.

When Gianna was criticized for not having an abortion and accused of abandoning her family if she died from the pregnancy, she said that her baby had the same right to live as the other three children. Gianna’s faith sustained her, and she was always mindful of doing God’s will.

Here’s a beautiful prayer that St. Gianna wrote:

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.