Ven. Fr. Germanus Of St. Stanislaus - The Life of St. Gemma Galgani (with Supplemental Reading: A Brief Life of Christ) [Illustrated]

St. Gemma Galgani
1878-1903

Visa relatione Censoris a Nobis deputati, librum cui titulus Life of Gemma Galgani anglica lingua a R. P. D. Adalberto OSullivan Monacho Congr. Nostrae conscriptum, imprimi permittimus, si ad quos pertinet, ita videbitur.

D. Maurus M. Serafini, O.S.B.
Ab. Gen. Cong. Cas. P. O.

D. Isidorus M. Sain, O.S.B.
a Secretis
Romae, 3 Decembris, 1913

Published c. 1914 by Sands & Company, London and Edinburgh, and B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Missouri. Retypeset and republished by the Passionist Nuns, Erlanger, Kentucky, in 1999. Republished with very minor revisions (e.g., typesetting style, punctuation, capitalization style) by TAN Books, in 2000. Published with permission of the Passionist Nuns, Erlanger.

ISBN: 978-0-89555-669-1

Library of Congress Control No.: 00-131558

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com
2012

Translators Preface

By Fr. A. M. OSullivan, O.S.B.

I WANT to say something that will help to spread a knowledge of the Servant of God, Gemma Galgani, and dont quite know how to put it briefly.

This something has nothing to do directly with the translation of her biography. It starts from a conviction that, the facts of this wonderful yet comparatively hidden life being recent, they are emphatically on that account calculated to do more good than if they were of a remote period.

Having tried unsuccessfully to find someone who would undertake to do this Life into English, I was induced to attempt it because kind and capable friends were ready to help me. Impelling motives were: my devotion to this Seraphic Virgin of Lucca, my desire to meet the wish of the author, Father Germanus of St. Stanislaus, whom I greatly esteemed, and my veneration for the Apostolic Institute of the Passionists to which he belonged; also my hope that the story of this Servant of God would do as much good among English readers as it was already doing among others.

The lives of Saints are generally of past history and considered by many to be almost necessarily of that very elastic period, the Middle Ages. They are looked upon also by many as out of reach of ordinary mortals, and merely as interesting subjects to be preserved in a sort of moral museumencased in the annals of the Church to be looked at; perhaps also to color more vividly the supposed truths of fiction. We know how false such ideas are. We have Saints with us today as in the past, but it is true that their lives do not come to be known immediately. Their whole aim is to imitate Him who is meek and humble of Heart, and to live up to the teachings of the Gospel as opposed to the maxims and ways of the world; their choice is always to be unknown and totally forgotten. Another marked characteristic of the lives of Gods faithful servants is that, while here denying themselves and carrying their cross, they are always strengthened and consoled by the Church in this warfare which is the lot of man; whereas, no sooner have they triumphed in the battlefield and gone to their reward, than the Church becomes silent with regard to their virtues. She then awaits the manifestation of their heroism sooner or later by the body of the faithful, who in their turn invariably come to observe, to inquire, to be moved to devotion, and loudly and universally to call on her to examine and pronounce on such holy lives.

The greatest value, I think, attaches to this Life from the exceptional fact that it is not of past history. This young girl has been with us quite lately; indeed, so recently that we all might have known her. Add to this another fact that enhances the preciousness of this biography: the great saints whom we know to have received some of the extraordinary favors vouchsafed by Heaven to this humble virgin, were either religious, or were living in the world singular lives that attracted public attention and curiosity. Gemma Galgani did not belong to either class, but lived an uneventful commonplace life.

Behold this unassuming girl: Of few years, but reaching the old age of a spotless life; a little child of the weaker sex, yet already stronger than all the powers of darkness. Then we have in her a talented girl also of striking candor, always consistent in her words and actions, of perfectly uniform temperament, and at the same time full of active energy and ready to sacrifice herself for others. She scrupulously avoided all singularity, so that none could be detected in her, except her rare attractiveness and an indescribable majesty of bearing. She strove to hide her heavenly endowments from all, and partly succeeded. God, however, effected the ends He had in view during her life through her ingenuous simplicity, and spoke, while she was silent, through her angelic grace and dignity which riveted the attention of beholders and illuminated their minds. In a word, Gemma was an ideal. According to a distinguished writer, all the Saints of the Catholic Church are ideal men and women. She, like them, charmed and satisfied everyone, leaving nothing to be desired.

But it is her most wonderful supernatural endowments which specially signalize this child of Heaven as a messenger of light and encouragement to this generation. Indeed, it may be claimed that no other Servant of God of whom anything is known has been found to have received so many of those extraordinary and exceptional gifts which even among the Saints are reserved to a chosen few. These marvels, owing no doubt to the fervent prayers and unceasing watchfulness of this angelic girl, have only become generally known since her death; and observe here again that, precisely because of their recent occurrence, they have all been verified beyond a shadow of doubt. They have likewise, through the testimony of countless witnesses still living, brought with them the most unanswerable refutation of most of the empty assertions of modern scientists regarding such supernatural matters. This innocent girl is a proof, standing in our midst, of the Infinite Mercy and Love lavished by our Saviour on His creatures in the Incarnation, and another instance of His intimate personal dealings with His faithful servants.

The pages of this Life are to many as rays of light and gifts of grace. That some will not reverence the miraculous works of God in His faithful servant goes without saying. The votaries of atheistic science, ignoring the First Cause, build on an unsettled foundation, and refusing to raise their minds to the supernatural, they necessarily remain grovelling in sense. They cannot, because they will not, understand; for pride will never yield to Eternal Truth. Of such it is written: The sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him and he cannot understand.

We await with reverent submission the infallible judgment of Holy Mother Church, for whom alone it is to pronounce on the sanctity of her children, and are full of hope that she will soon proclaim the sanctity of Gemma Galgani. [Gemma was canonized in 1940.] We are emboldened in this by the widespread and rapidly increasing devotion to this child of benediction, and by the numerous miracles that are being wrought through her intercession.