CHAPTER VI

March, April, May—1899

Restoration of Health, Spiritual Retreat with the Sisters & Rejection from the Convent

GEMMA’S CURE was as perfect as it was instantaneous the Sacred Heart of Jesus being its author; Blessed Margaret Mary the intercessor, and Blessed Gabriel of the Dolours the instrument. Having left her bed and her room, all on fire with celestial love and tempered like steel from the furnace, the first thought of this angel in human form was to return to her religious practices and to consider what Our Lord, Who had given her health and life, required at her hands. “From that day forward,” she tells us, “I began to feel it impossible to live unless I went every day to Jesus.”

And having longed for years to enter the cloister she thought the time to effect her wish had come. She made it known to her family and they having no doubt of the genuineness of her vocation put no obstacle in the way. They were the more condescending because the accomplishment of her desire seemed remote. Gemma however did not think so, but imagined that she could fly at once to the desired solitude of the Convent, there to remain with Jesus. Towards the end of her serious illness three different vocations called for her consideration. The Sisters of St Camillus had suggested to ask Our Lady to cure her on the condition of her entering their Congregation. Blessed Gabriel appearing to her had often called her Sister, and placed on her breast the badge of the Passionists; then a mysterious voice had invited her to become a Visitandine. This last invitation seemed to draw her more than the others because of her gratitude to Blessed Margaret Mary, through whose intercession she had been cured. Hence, six days after her marvelous recovery she wrote these words: “I long to fly off at once to where B. Margaret Mary wishes! Oh, how ill at ease I feel in the world! Ever since I rose from my bed an inexplicable aversion to everything has taken hold of me.”

Meanwhile that wonderful cure got noised in Lucca and many were talking of it. The Visitandines wanted to know all about it from Gemma herself. They received her most cordially and showed their pleasure at the prospect of having her some day as their Sister among their number. Gemma thought she knew when that day would be from that voice which, on her rising from her bed of sickness, had said to her: “Renew all thy promises to Jesus, and add that in the month consecrated to Him (June) you also wilt go to consecrate thyself to Him.”

Thinking that this voice invited her definitely to the Visitation she poured out her soul in desires to enter there, and felt it hard to defer this step any longer. “Now,” she said, “it is the 9th of March; who will send me on to the 1st of June?”

Those good Religious, to shorten as it were the time and please her, promised to receive her into their house to make a course of Spiritual Exercises about the beginning of May, and that a month later they would admit her as Postulant. During the first thirty days of this time of expectation, Our Lord filled the heart of His Servant with ineffable consolations. It may be said that about this time Gemma began to lead that heavenly and singular life which finds a parallel in very few lives of the Greatest Saints. Before then she had abundant Mental light, locutions, sweetest consolations and heavenly apparitions; but these things happened at varying intervals. Now for the first time began her almost uninterrupted series of Divine Communications that were of the most exalted kind: vivid lights, sublime attractions, strongest impulses.

To these she corresponded faithfully and rose rapidly to the highest perfection. Her union with God was intimate; so fixedly did she gaze on Him, that she knew not how to think of aught else, this accounts for her entire abandonment in Him, and her unalterable uniformity to the Divine Will, bringing with it calm and contentment in the midst of the hardest trials. In a word Gemma now lives only for God: He is the object of every desire and aspiration, He alone pleases her, and in Him her soul reposes; I shall have occasion to speak more at length of this happy state always becoming more perfect in the charming existence we are studying. Here I merely notice its beginning as contemporaneous with her miraculous recovery. Holy Week was drawing nigh, Gemma was awaiting it with anxiety in order then to give full vent to the impulses of her heart towards Jesus Crucified.

With a view to relate with exactness what happened to her in that Great Week, I will mention her practice of the “Holy Hour,” during which in the latter years of her life the most wonderful marvels of Divine Love were verified in her. When she was ill her school-mistress, Sister Julia, visited her and, to encourage her to suffer her great pains, spoke of the Weekly Devotion of the Holy Hour every Thursday evening, in honor of the beginning of Our Savior’s bitter Passion. Gemma, wholly captivated by what she heard, though weak in body yet animated by fervor, resolved to practice the devotion even while confined to bed. She asked anxiously for the Manual entitled “An hour of prayer with Jesus agonizing in Gethsemane” and the Sister brought it to her; it was composed by the foundress of the Institute of St Zita, and consisted of four meditations on the Passion followed by prayers and offerings.

Gemma looked on it as a treasure, and from that moment promised the Heart of Jesus that on recovering her health she would never fail to keep the Holy Hour every Thursday. On Holy Thursday of the same year, with her Confessor’s leave, she began this pious exercise, and in order to prepare well for it she prefaced it by a General Confession of her whole life. This shows the idea she had formed of the Holy Hour. Although ignoring the end for which God had ordained such a preparation for such an exercise, we shall see what that end was.

Meanwhile let us hear Gemma’s own account of what passed:

“I began for the first time to make the holy hour out of bed. I had promised the Sacred Heart of Jesus that if I were cured I would make it every Thursday without fail” (And she never omitted it while she lived.). I felt so full of sorrow for my sins that I passed a time of continual martyrdom. In the midst of this immense grief however, one comfort was left me; that of tears. I spent the whole hour praying and weeping, and sat down. My grief lasted a little while longer and then I felt my whole being rapt in recollection. Then, all of a sudden, I lost the use of my senses. I was able with difficulty to stand up and lock the room door. Where was I? I found myself before Jesus Crucified.

“He was bleeding all over. I lowered my eyes at once, and the sight filled me with pain. I made the Sign of the Cross and immediately my anguish was succeeded by tranquility of spirit; but I continued to feel even a greater sorrow for my sins than before, and I had not courage to lift my eyes to look at Jesus. I prostrated myself with my forehead to the ground and there remained for several hours. I came to myself with the Wounds of Jesus so deeply impressed on my mind that they have never since left it.”

The Vision vanished and Gemma, thirsting with love for her Jesus Crucified, and with desire to contemplate His ineffable pains, yearned for the dawn of Good Friday, so as to be able to take part in the “Three Hours’ Agony.” But those around her thought it imprudent to let her go to Church owing to their well-grounded fear, lest the intensity of her faith and love might cause her heart to break on that occasion. She felt the prohibition keenly and tears came to her eyes; yet she mastered her feelings, and “doing violence to myself,” she said, “I made this first sacrifice to Jesus, and He, so generous to me, rewarded me for it.” Being unwilling to lose the fruit of the desired exercise she shut herself in her room and then began. The “Three Hours” alone. But why say alone? She had scarcely retired when her Angel Guardian came by her side. He reproved her for having shed those tears a little while before and gave her wise advice about the generosity of Sacrifice that God wished to find in her. After that they prayed together; the Angel helped Gemma to keep devout company with Jesus in his pains and with His sorrowful Mother, and, thus aided, many and great heavenly communications were vouchsafed to her during the loving contemplation.

Later in her account of it to her director she said:

“This was the first time . . . and the first Friday that Jesus made Himself felt so forcibly in my soul; and although I did not receive Him corporally from the hands of the priest (which was impossible on Good Friday), yet of His own accord He came and communicated Himself to me. But this union was so strong that I remained as it were stupefied. Oh! Jesus spoke so forcibly!”

Such great favors, whilst indeed filling the soul of this chosen child with consolations, overwhelmed her at the same time with confusion and fear. She deemed herself unworthy of them; she wished that no one should become aware of them, and it needed the authority of the Angel Guardian to induce her to manifest to her confessor the visions we have just mentioned. She tells us herself of the salutary effects—two ardent impulses—produced in her by the Vision of Christ sweating blood.

“The first,” she said, “was to love Him, and love Him to Sacrifice; the second was a great desire to suffer something for Him, seeing that He had suffered so much for me.” Not knowing how to gratify these yearnings she turned to Jesus asking Him to I teach her how to love Him, and He gratified her. This is how it happened: “I was full of anxiety,” she writes, “at not knowing how to love; but Jesus in His infinite goodness was not ashamed to come and be my Master.”

It was an April evening of the same year, 1899; Gemma was alone in her room, with her thoughts and affections centered in Jesus Crucified and intent on making her usual evening prayers, “when all of a sudden,” thus she continues, “I felt myself rapt in recollection, and I found myself for the second time before Jesus Crucified, Who said to me: Look My child, and learn how to love” (And He showed her His five open wounds.). Look at this Cross, these Thorns, these Nails, these livid marks and lacerations. These Wounds are all works of Love—of Infinite Love. See to what extent I have loved thee.”

At this sight the tender-hearted girl felt such intense grief that, unable to bear it, she fell fainting to the ground, and there remained for hours immersed in an ocean of sorrow and love. In spite of all this, it seemed as if grace had not yet found this holy soul sufficiently purified to be capable of receiving the great gift in store for her. Gemma had to prepare herself for it by a course of spiritual exercises. She realized it and hastened to shut herself up in the Convent of the Visitandines at Lucca, where a Retreat was to begin on the 1st of May. The time was drawing nigh, Gemma counted the days—she counted the moments that must pass before she entered the Convent; there to be all and alone with Jesus. He in His turn was by His grace working out the perfection of that chosen soul so as to fit her for the great gift she was to receive.

At last the 1st of May arrived. Gemma’s heart was full of joy, and at eight in the evening she hastened to the sacred cloister where upon entering she said she seemed to be in Paradise, and as if almost foreseeing what was to be accomplished in her within a month, she went into the exercises of the holy retreat with unwonted fervor. She forbade her relatives to visit her so as to be undisturbed. “For,” as she put it, “those days all belonged to Jesus.”

It will be interesting to know how she did those exercises, as they gave, so to say, a finishing stroke to the operation of a great grace in her soul. The Sisters wished not only to have Gemma with them for a while; they also counted on her joining their Congregation. They knew she possessed nothing, but had the reputation of great virtue, and would therefore be a great gain for them. They arranged with her Confessor for her not to go through the exercises like other externs, but according to the Horary of the Community. She accordingly joined the Religious in choir, at meditation and work; also in the Refectory, and at other duties as if she were already a Novice. She would rather have remained alone and hidden, passing those days unobserved. Yet, knowing that obedience and denial of her own will were more pleasing to God, she raised no difficulty, but cheerfully submitted to the rule of the Novitiate. Those good Sisters intended thereby to try Gemma’s vocation; they also desired to be edified by mere example because of what they heard of her from her Confessor, Mgr. Volpi, who was their great Protector.

All became enamored of Gemma and loaded her with marks of their esteem. From what this Angelic girl wrote afterwards, we learn, at least in part, that during those days of retreat she was the recipient of many lights and heavenly communications: “Jesus,” she said, “regardless of my misery consoled me, and made me feel Him always in my soul.”

These words in her mouth meant that all Heaven poured itself into that soul. She felt she was in a Paradise, and yet the Rule observed by those Religious did not come up to the promptings of her fervor. Her desire was to treat with God alone and to do great penance for the love of Jesus. That life appeared to her to be too easy, and this sentiment seemed to be an inspiration of Grace.

“Very often,” she narrates, “at intervals Jesus said in my heart: My child, a more austere rule is requisite for thee.”

Still, she willingly remained in the Convent, and trembled at the thought of returning to her home. She was also continually importuning her Confessor to use his influence so that she might remain where she was and not return to the world. The Archbishop’s approval was sought, and here began difficulties. That holy Prelate, Mgr. Ghilardi, although he had heard of Gemma did not know her. He had doubts of her perfect recovery from the effects of her long dangerous illness. This difficulty was removed, but still the Archbishop, inspired no doubt by God, remained firm. He would not allow Gemma to enter the Novitiate in June, as was intended, and only permitted her remaining in the Convent till the 20th of May that she might have the consolation of being present at the Profession of some Novices.

This religious ceremony caused her great joy, while little knowing what was going to happen to herself. “Jesus,” she said, “caused me to be affected more than usual; I cried and cried a great deal.”—tears no doubt of love and sorrow. She remained alone and apart during the ceremony entirely absorbed in contemplation. While all others were concerned about the newly professed, Gemma was forgotten and left in the chapel without breakfast or dinner. But that was nothing in her estimation.

The great trial came the same evening when she was told that she had to leave the Convent next day. Her grief was extreme, and only suppressed by her heroic resignation to the Will of God: “At five o’clock on the morning of the 21st of May,” these are her words, “I had to go. I asked the Mother Superior’s blessing as I wept, and having said Good-bye to the Nuns I left. My God, what grief!”

Thus plunged in sorrow she returned to her home, which seemed so altered in the course of twenty days that she could no longer adapt herself to it. Occupations, persons, subjects of conversation—all were changed, yet knowing that such was the Divine Will she entered on all her duties as before with equal earnestness. She felt that her exterior occupation did not hinder her attending to heavenly things; and therefore suppressing her soul’s yearnings and setting aside her disappointments, she was all attention to the wants of her Aunts, of her little brother and her younger sister. While serving them punctually she encouraged them by her example to bear with patience their hard trials that were being daily multiplied.

Among her other practices, after her days in the Convent, she renewed that of going frequently with her little Sister Julia on Feasts of Obligation to pray at the tomb of their parents. Having heard Mass, and received Holy Communion she went with this beloved Companion straight to the Cemetery, which was some distance from the city, and there remained a great part of the day. They often waited for the gates to be opened after midday, and hence a poor woman who lived close by, seeing the two young girls standing on the road in silence and recollection, regardless of the cold rain or sun invited them to take shelter and rest in her house. So charmed was she with them that she made them promise to come always to rest and have something to eat with her. They did so with gratitude; but it sometimes happened that this charitable hostess was not at home, and so they remained fasting all day, stopping an their way home at some church for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Thus those two angels sanctified the Festival.

The Salesian Nuns had not abandoned the idea of receiving Gemma. And she, although feeling in her heart that their life was not her ideal, would gladly have joined them. She was unaware that the Consecration for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of which Our Lord spoke to her was not that of the Religious Profession, but quite another. Gemma, mistaking His words, continued to long for it, with perfect resignation, but still with intense fervor. She went daily to the Convent begging to be received and still difficulties presented themselves.

At first the Sisters in their desire to have her waived all obstacles; but at length they too began to hesitate. Gemma quickly perceived the change but was not disturbed by it. She took counsel with God, Who at last gave her clearly to understand the mystery of her consecration, at least as far as it concerned the Visitation. Thereupon contented and resigned she ceased from taking further steps and awaited in her home whatever God might will in her regard.

Oh, how truly great, O my God, and how ineffable are the ways by which You lead Thy Elect!