Visionaries Mystics and Stigmatists Part III

Visionaries Mystics and Stigmatists Part III

Bob and Penny Lord

Published by Bob and Penny Lord at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Bob and Penny Lord

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Visionaries Mystics and Stigmatists Part III

Table of Contents:

Saint Gemma Galgani

Mystic who bore the precious Wounds of Our Savior

Sister Faustina & Divine Mercy

God’s Messenger of Divine Mercy

Blessed Anna Maria Taigi

Loyal Wife,

Loving Mother,

Faithful Daughter of the Church

Mystic and Stigmatist

Advisor to the Popes

Blessed Dina Belanger

Victim of Love

Apostle of Love

Martyr of Love

Saint Brother Andre

Miracle Worker of Montreal

Healer, Religious, Doorkeeper, Dreamer of Dreams

Saint Gemma Galgani

Mystic who bore the precious Wounds of Our Savior

The curtain is falling on the 19th Century. The Heresy of Modernism would soon show its venomous fangs and the Church, through her holy Pope Saint Pius X, would fight it, dispelling it for all time, or so he hoped. We, know now at the tail end of the 20th Century that this did not come to pass. We are, once again, suffering the same Heresy combined with centuries of other condemned heresies, all in one deadly poisonous attack disguised under the name of enlightenment.

The Lord was wounded by His sons, those He had commissioned to be guardians of the Faith. He needed a victim-soul. His priests and bishops, who were supposed to be victim-priests with Him, had once again betrayed Him, and He needed a soul who would be faithful and obedient until death, one who would share His Wounds and Passion. And so, a Gemma was born!

The Lord sends down a Gem from Heaven to bless the world

In Camigliano, a small village not too far from the historic city of Lucca, the Lord blessed Aurelia Landi2 and Enrico Galgani on March 12, 1878, with a tiny, precious little baby girl (as the priest who baptized her, exclaimed upon seeing her), una Gemma del Paradiso!

Gemma’s mother had hesitated naming her new-born child Gemma, as it was not a Saint’s name, but did so, taking the priest’s words as prophecy that the Lord had blessed them with a gem from Heaven.

Once again, we find Holy Clusters3 as we discover, Gemma’s father descended from the same family as a Saint, St. John Leonardi. Gemma would bless the same city, Lucca, that another Saint, St. Zita4 blessed in the 13th Century. As her father had relocated his family to Lucca, soon after Gemma was born, she spent most of her twenty five years of life there, and now after death, rests there for the faithful to come and venerate till today.

Although she was one of seven children, she and her brother Gino were their father’s favorites. He liked to take Gemma and her brother for walks. But when he showed special favors to them, they both rebelled, not wanting to be treated better than the other children. Nevertheless, we can be sure, the rest of the family probably resented the two and did not look upon them, kindly.

Gemma showed signs of sainthood from a very young age. One day, her grandmother noticed her precious, chubby, little granddaughter, all of four years old, kneeling before a picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When her grandmother called an uncle over, they asked the child what she was doing. She replied, she was praying the Rosary and to please leave her alone, so that she could continue. Needless to say, this little feisty future saint had her way; they left her with her Blessed Mother. Even from this young age, it was obvious, Gemma would belong to no one but the Lord and His Mother.

Gemma was her mother’s life! They would pray together, the little girl joyfully keeping up with her mother. Each day, she excitedly looked forward to the time when her mother told her stories about Jesus and His Mother. But that was tragically to come to an end when Gemma was only five years old. Her mother became ill. The next few pain-filled years, her mother would hold her little girl close to her, cradle her in her arms and ask the Lord why He had sent this precious girl to her so late. She would tell Gemma, she wished she could take her up to Heaven with her.

Gemma, in later years, gave full credit to her mother for the great love, she had for God through the Cross. Her mother taught her the Faith, through the Lord Crucified, speaking of that loving God the Father Who sacrificed His only begotten Son for her, and of Jesus the Son Who willingly suffered and died for her. Knowing suffering first hand, her mother taught Gemma the value of the Cross. As death approached, her mother, completely bedridden, continued telling her stories about Jesus. But when she was nearing the end, she told her little Gemma that soon, she would learn from Jesus Himself Who would speak to her from the very depths of her heart.

As she could feel the debilitating ravages of consumption draining her of life, her mother, Aurelia, requested Gemma be allowed to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, before she died. Although she was only seven years old, her mother’s instructions had fared her well and the Pastor agreed. The day of her Confirmation came and she was confirmed. After that Mass was over, she and her family stayed to give thanksgiving at the next Mass. As she was deep in prayer, praising the Lord for the gift of this Divine Sacrament that He had given her, Saint Gemma Galgani

Gemma heard a voice interiorly ask her: Will you give me your mother? She replied she would, but asked the Lord to take her, along with her mother. The Lord asked her to give her mother to Him, unconditionally. This was to be the first of many sacrifices that He would ask of her throughout her life, as she would join Him on the Cross.

Gemma carries her first cross, as her mother dies

It was September 17, 1886, and it was time for the young Aurelia (age 39) to go Home to the Lord, she had so faithfully brought to her daughter, the future Saint. Now that her mother was with the God she had so often spoken of, Gemma knew, there would no longer be anyone to tell her stories about her Jesus. Believing with all her heart that her mother would now help her from Heaven, did not heal the emptiness she felt, losing her beloved mother and holy story teller.

She was to remain on earth with her father and her brothers and sisters. Her first Christmas, after her mother’s death, was a very quiet one. She looked like a little girl who had lost all her toys, as she tried to find the joy she had shared with her mother, when, in former Christmases, they had welcomed the Baby Jesus into their hearts. She sat at the window, looking off to the Place from where, she knew her mother was watching over her and tears began to flow. She cried, remembering how she had breathlessly helped her mother roll the dough to make ready all the baked goods, in anticipation of the precious Baby’s birth.

Jesus in the Eucharist comes to dwell in Gemma

At age nine (although she was frail, and barely looked six), she was sent off to a fine school run by the Sisters of St. Zita. The wise and holy Sisters soon discovered she was a special soul, untouched by the world, who would, one day, be singularly blessed by the Lord.

When she pleaded to be allowed to receive her Lord in Holy Communion: Give Him to me; I long for Him, and I cannot live without Him, her confessor had no choice but to say Yes! It was then, she said, that she received her first embrace from Visionaries, Mystics and Stigmatists

Jesus Crucified. From then on, she would desire only to walk with Him, sharing in His Passion. She later wrote,

Do grant, oh my God, that when my lips approach Yours to kiss You, I may taste the gall that was given You; when my shoulders lean against Yours, make me feel Your scourging; when my flesh is united with Yours, in the Holy Eucharist, make me feel Your Passion; when my head comes near Yours, make me feel Your thorns; when my heart is close to Yours, make me feel Your spear...

When we approach Our Lord in Holy Communion, are we aware of the price, Our Crucified Lord paid that we might receive Him in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? As we receive the Risen Lord, do we ever contemplate the action of the Mass, the ongoing Sacrifice of the Cross5 which brings the Risen Lord to us? Should you ever begin to walk beside Him on the Way of the Cross and join Him during the Sacrifice of the Mass, you will begin, as Saint Gemma before you, to know the Savior Who suffered and died for you.

On June 17, Feast of the Sacred Heart, Gemma received First Holy Communion. As she was preparing for His Kiss, she meditated on no longer being herself but becoming the Jesus Who would live in, and love through her. She said that when she consumed the Host, for the first time, she had a glimpse of what life in union with Christ would be like when she shed the shell of her body and was with Him in Paradise. During her remaining sixteen years, whenever she remembered, or better relived that day, she again tasted that special morsel of Heaven, she knew the first time she received Holy Communion.

She was an outstanding student in school, excelling in all her studies, secular as well as religious. She was liked and loved by students and teachers alike. As one of the few things she feared most intensely, was that she might offend God, she would answer simply No when she meant No and Yes when she meant Yes. For Gemma there were no gray areas (so popular today, where we no longer know what is right or wrong); it was either black or white. One of the Sisters who spoke of her child-like frankness remembered the day, the girls at the school were practicing for a play, when the Mother Superior came to the Sister in charge and asked her to have the girls pray for a dying man who refused the Holy Sacraments. The girls knelt with the Sister and prayed for the poor soul. After they finished praying, little Gemma came over to the Sister and whispered: The grace has been granted. They received word that evening that the dying man had converted and died after having received the Holy Sacraments of the Church; Penance, Holy Communion and Extreme Unction.6

Gemma always strived to keep her senses under control; sometimes using quite severe (by today’s standards) means of mortification. Her principle fear was being in any way, guilty of the sin of pride. When she was once accused of pride by one of her classmates, she said she did not know what to answer because she did not know what pride was and did not want to offend God by answering incorrectly. But, with years, comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes the loss of such child-like innocence. As she grew older, Gemma became aware of the dangerous subtleties of pride and how they devour souls, once allowed to enter the smallest corner of the soul. Because of this concern, she would plead with her teachers and fellow students to forgive her if she had been guilty of pride in any form.

No matter what was going on around her, Gemma’s heart always longed for her Lord in the Tabernacle. Although she obeyed the Sisters when instructed to play with the other girls, she still looked toward the often locked door of the Chapel, saying that love breaks down all barriers. One day the Sister asked the class, Who wants to be a Saint? Without waiting for the Sister to add in the play, Gemma shot up and answered I will become a Saint.

Gemma goes through The Dark Night of the Soul

Honeymoons end, and then the reality of living a life together comes into play. Jesus had wooed little Gemma; she was ecstatic, sharing the sweetness of being loved by Him. But all good things come to an end. Gemma was to now know the Lord in His Passion, the Lord Who suffered in Gethsemane. She would share the abandonment that He felt as she went through the Dark night of the Soul, experiencing nothing after receiving Holy Communion. Feeling spiritually alone, afflicted in body and soul, finding no consolation in prayers, nothing to affirm her faith, Gemma, like her Jesus before her, still knew and continued to believe she was not abandoned by God and tried even harder to please Him.

Things improved at home. Whereas she had formerly been chastised for wanting to go to church to be with her Lord, after her two aunts came to live with her family, she was able to go and had the joy of receiving her sweet Lord once more in Holy Communion every day at Mass.

On a retreat in 1891, at the Convent of St. Zita, Jesus gave Gemma deep insights into herself and how she could please Him more with her heart than her lips. As she listened to His Voice beckoning her to be like Himself in His humility, obedience, and sweet unconditional love, she resolved: to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, each day, speak to Him with her heart and not her lips; and when she prayed, to speak of Heavenly things, not earthly concerns.

Gemma has to say good by to her brother Gino

It was 1894 and Gemma was sixteen years old. Once again, she had to say good-by to a loved one who would precede her to Heaven. Her brother Gino had always shared her love for Jesus. When he heard Jesus’ call to become a victim-priest with Him, he did not know that it was to be in Heaven. He had studied industriously and had just graduated from Minor Seminary with highest honors when he contracted the same disease that claimed his mother’s life. He was only eighteen years old. And so little Saint Gemma Galgani 11

Gemma’s heart knew heartbreak once more, as her brother left her to join their mother and beloved Lord Jesus in Paradise.

Devastated by the death of her dear brother, Gemma became so ill, she was unable to rise from bed for over three months. Her father, seeing his precious child near death, pleaded with Jesus to take him and not her. The Lord answered his prayers and two years later, his spirit spent from the crosses he had borne, Gemma’s father went Home to his wife and son.

[It reminds me of the time my father was seriously ill with Cancer. I had not been feeling well either. After the results were in from my x-rays, the doctor told me, by the size of the mass and how quickly it had grown, it most likely was malignant and I had to have an operation, immediately! I did not want to upset my parents so I said it was just a little minor surgery, nothing serious, and I would not be in the hospital long. My father went into the bedroom and prayed to the Lord (like Gemma’s father) to take him and not me. My father died a few months later. I never had an operation. Such great love! Does the world know that kind of