Celebrate St. Gianna’s 60th Wedding Anniversary

Wedding Dress of Co-Patron of World Meeting of Families on Display in Philadelphia

(photo: Courtesy of Archdiocese of Philadelphia)

Catholics often consider members of the communion of saints to be members of their own families. Few of them, however, are blessed to actually have canonized saints among the members of their blood relatives. Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla is one of them. Her mother, Dr. Gianna Beretta Molla, was canonized on May 16, 2004, by Pope St. John Paul II, who defined her mother’s heroic witness to life as “a real song to life.”

To celebrate their parents’ 60th wedding anniversary on Sept. 24, the three remaining children of St. Gianna will be reuniting at the World Meeting of Families’ Congress to share a second-class relic of their sainted mother: her beautiful wedding dress. This relic, along with others, will be on display at the Cathedral-Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul Sept. 20-24. The cathedral will also have on display relics from Philadelphia’s beloved “hometown” saints and others (see pages B1 and B5). Visitors to the cathedral-basilica will also be able to attend perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament during that week.

 

Heroic Mother

Gianna Molla was a physician, a working mother, professional woman and a loving wife. Like many women, Gianna longed to have many children, but suffered from difficult and painful pregnancies. While pregnant with her fourth child, Gianna was diagnosed with a fibroid tumor that caused her great pain and which caused complications to her pregnancy and threatened the life of her child. She declined a hysterectomy that might have saved her own life and instead carried the baby to term. She died after giving birth to Gianna Emanuela, as a result of an infection of the lining of her abdomen.

Today, Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla is a licensed geriatrician, who left her profession to care for her father, Pietro, until his death in 2010. She works full time for the St. Gianna Foundation.

 

Learn More

Pilgrims to Philadelphia will have a wealth of opportunities to learn more about St. Gianna Molla: Sept. 24, 4:15-5:15pm: Attendees of the World Meeting of Families Congress can hear Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla speak at the breakout session entitled “Out of the Depths I Cry to You, O Lord: The Heartbreak of Infertility”; Sept. 25, 7pm: Nativity of Our Lord Church (625 W. Street Rd., Warminster, PA 18974) will host “An Evening With Pierluigi Molla” (son of St. Gianna Molla), including a prayer service, veneration of the relics of St. Gianna and a talk by Pierluigi.

Diana von Glahn is producer

and host of EWTN’s The Faithful Traveler (TheFaithfulTraveler.com).

She is covering the World Meeting of Families for the Register.

Read more here.