St. Gianna Beretta Molla

April is such a beautiful month! Spring makes a definite entrance during this month; filled with all of the wondrous hopes for the celebrations of new life. April is often the month in which we celebrate Easter, God’s promise of everlasting life! It is fitting that the Feast Day of our Center’s name’s sake is celebrated in the month of April. The 28th of April is St. Gianna Feast Day.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla is the patron saint of mothers, physicians and the unborn. She was also drawn to the elderly and the poor. Many of you know her story but it bears repeating. St. Gianna was an Italian physician and known as Dr. Gianna Molla. She was noted for the special love that she had for mothers and for children. It was well known that she did not charge those patients who could not afford the fees and was often known to buy their medicine for them. The love that she had for her patients was enormous by every measurement. Even greater was her love for her own children. She referred to them as her jewels. While pregnant with her fourth child, a tumor was discovered in the initial stages of the pregnancy. It was a dangerous situation and she was given the choice of an abortion, a hysterectomy or to have only the tumor removed. Having only the tumor removed was the only hope of keeping her pregnancy, but it also added significant danger to St. Gianna health. She chose the removal of the tumor. Throughout the rest of her pregnancy, St. Gianna continued to tell her family that no matter what, they were to choose the life of the baby. That baby, Gianna Emanuela was born a healthy baby by way of a C-section on April 21, 1962; it was Holy Saturday. St. Gianna died exactly a week later on April 28th due to an infection which resulted in sepsis.

St. Gianna was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 16^, 2004. Her husband and their children attended the ceremony making this the first time that a husband was in attendance of his wife’s canonization.

Our St. Gianna center tries to emulate the values of St. Gianna. We do provide our services for all women/couples; those who can pay a reasonable fee and those who can pay nothing. We believe that this treasured knowledge belongs to everyone. We feel extremely honored to have been called to this work. We are honored too by those who so generously help to keep us open by their faithful monetary and prayerful support. A welcome surprise for us happened last month when a parishioner of Prince of Peace Catholic Church promoted our cause to a gathering of women and the result was a collective donation of over $400.00! WOW! The presenter and those wonderful women will never know how many people will benefit from that. Our gratitude to them and to each of you is beyond our ability to express. Please know that we are incredibly grateful receivers of your kindness. Thank you!

St. Gianna, pray for us and for our Center.

We also ask your prayers for the repose of the soul of Ouida Gramlich. She is Gregor Gramlich’s precious mom and mother-in-law to Dr. Gramlich. She was taken to her eternal reward on the 26th of March.

May she rest in peace.