Took Gemma for my patroness and protector…I have already felt her powerful help.

COMMENT: April 11 is the feast of St Gemma Galgani, who died on this day in 1903 at the age of 25. 

Gemma was a simple Italian lay woman who was born 5 years after Fr Willie. She was unable to join a convent, so she lived a simple and modest life in the world. She was also the recipient of numerous mystical gifts, though of course these themselves are not the reason for her canonisation. 

Fr Willie was an early devotee of St Gemma’s. Her biography was first published in English in 1913; today’s quote, where we see him taking her as a special patroness, comes from his diary in April 1915. We know that Fr Willie would sometimes pick a page of St Gemma’s biography at random to use it as inspiration for his prayer. In one of Fr Willie’s notebooks  there is a newspaper clipping with a photograph of Gemma, presumably cut out by Fr Willie himself a sign of his tender devotion to her. Perhaps what is most striking from today’s quote is Fr Willie’s perception that St Gemma was already guiding and helping him. While Fr Willie and St Gemma had different vocations and states in life, there is one particularly clear similarity in their spirituality – they both offered themselves as victims in reparation for the sins of priests. 

May the example of St Gemma inspire us, and may she intercede and pray for all devotees of Fr Willie and for all of those who work for his canonisation.