On Monday, April 30, 1962, at 3 p.m., the town of Ponte Nuovo in a small church of Our Lady of Good Counsel (approximately 100 meters from Pietro and Gianna's home) mourns the death of Gianna Beretta Molla--their beloved wife, mother, doctor, and friend--who had passed on the past Saturday, April 28. She was not even forty (see picture #1 below).
Pietro, her husband, accompanied by their four small children—Pierluigi, Mariolina, Laura, and baby Gianna—who did not comprehend the severity of situation as they walked and were carried broken-hearted behind Gianna’s coffin to the cemetery. Pierluigi, the oldest son at five, tugs Pietro’s hand, pointing to the coffin, “Why is mamma closed in that box?”1 “Where is mamma going?”2 Later, Pierluigi tells his father, “There must be a little house of gold for mamma.”3
Pietro too grief-stricken at the moment to respond to Pierluigi, agrees. Later on, he commissioned a gold mosaic to adorn the walls surrounding his wife’s burial vault. In the second picture below, we see the outside of Saint Gianna’s glass and granite mausoleum, containing an altar, burial vault, and wall mosaic. In the third picture below, we see a close-up view of the plaque outside the mausoleum depicting the date of her beatification on April 24, 1994 and the date of her canonization on May 16, 2004. When you visit the burial chapel, one can see the Latin words “Fidelis usque ad mortem”, translated to “Faithful unto death,” adorned with a cross and olive branch.
In the fourth picture below, “Mamma’s House of Gold,” we see Gianna’s burial vault outlined in a gold frame on the right-hand wall. On the adjacent wall to the vault wall is the mosaic. The mosaic depicts Gianna offering her daughter, Mariolina, to Our Lady of Lourdes, assisted by Teresina, Pietro’s young sister, who had died years earlier. Mariolina suffered a fast-acting disease while attending boarding school. Teresina, was a patient of Gianna, and she and Pietro met while she was the attending physician.
In the fifth picture below, the burial vault's plaque, adorning the burial vault framed in gold, is inscribed with, “Ha Offerto L’Olocausto Della Sua Vita Alla Sua Maternita,” when translated means, “She offered a holocaust of her life to her maternity.”
Saint Gianna’s devotion to her Catholic faith and unwavering belief that God would handle her problem once she placed it into God’s Hands as witnessed by her unselfish offering of her life in exchange for the life of her daughter, Gianna Emanuela, has inspired many people from around the world.
Prayer of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla
Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to happen to 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 always do Your Holy Will, the grace to confide in You, the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in Your Loving Divine Arms. AMEN. May God Bless You and Your Loved Ones!The Board of Directors
The Society of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla1 Booklet: NO GREATER LOVE by Ann M. Brown 2 Booklet: NO GREATER LOVE by Ann M. Brown 3 Booklet: NO GREATER LOVE by Ann M. Brown |
