CHAPTER XIX

Gemma’s Ascent to Sanctity amidst Trials

GOD IN order to purify His elect and render them victims of expiation, makes use even of the devils, who because of their hatred of souls and large intelligence become more efficacious instruments than others to the attainment of His ends. The sacred writings assure us of this, and Christian hagiography enables us to prove its existence in the Church of God. Thus Our Lord when He made known to our holy founder St Paul of the Cross, that He willed to raise him to an exalted degree of sanctity spoke thus: “I will have thee to be trampled under foot by devils.”

And in like manner, He said to His servant Gemma: “Be prepared My child; the devil at My bidding shall be the one who by the war he will wage against thee, will give the last touch to the work that I will accomplish in thee.”

I wish to point out here that this war was general, in that it was waged against all the virtues and holy operations by which this child of grace studied to advance in perfection. They were all hateful to Satan, and he attacked them all with unmitigated rage. One would have said that it appeared to be almost his only aim, to torment this servant of God, by continually inventing new methods of assailing her.

Gemma had early learned that the best way to securely reach God’s ends is prayer; so with all the ardor of her soul she practiced it, and derived the most marked advantages from it. What then did not the enemy do to prevent it? He upset her temperament in order to excite within her, at least, weariness and disinclination; for he found it impossible to make her lose sight of God, he caused her violent headaches so that she might be obliged to go to bed rather than remain in prayer, and strove otherwise to turn her from the holy exercise.

“Oh!” she said to me, “what torment this gives me, not to be able to pray! What fatigue it costs me! How many efforts does not that wretch make to render it impossible for me to pray! Yesterday evening he tried to kill me, and would have succeeded if Jesus had not come quickly to my aid. I was terrified and kept the image of Jesus in my mind, but I could not pronounce His name.”

At other times he attacked her differently. “What art you doing?” he said blaspheming; “Stupid that you art to think of praying to a malefactor. Look at the harm He does thee, keeping thee nailed to the Cross with Himself. How then canst you care for Him! For Him Whom you do not even know—Who makes all who love Him suffer?”

But these and other equally iniquitous suggestions were as dust before the wind, and only served to afflict her at hearing her Jesus outraged by such blasphemies. In the midst of so much suffering the servant of God found some comfort in letting her spiritual father know what she was undergoing and how she was acting, so as to have his direction and advice. Even this the wicked enemy could not bear, and in order to turn her away from her spiritual guide, he tried to circumvent her in a thousand ways.

He depicted her director in such vivid colors to her imagination, as an ignorant fanatical deluded man, and with so many arguments strove to convince and terrify her, that the poor child thought herself all but lost. Hence on one of these occasions she wrote:

“For some days Chiappino (a name she called the devil) has pursued me in every guise and way, and has done all in his power against me. This monster keeps on redoubling all his efforts to ruin me and tries to deprive me of whoever directs and advises me. But even should this happen”—(notice here her virtue of detachment)—“I am not afraid.”

That was not enough to make the enemy desist. Seeing that with all his arts he could not succeed in shaking her confidence in her director, he resorted to acts of violence, and assaulting her while she persevered in writing, he snatched the pen from her hand, tore up the paper and dragged her from the table, seizing her by the hair with such violence that it came away in his brutal claws.

Then withdrawing he shouted in his fury, “War, war, against thy father, war as long as he lives!” And the fiend has known right well how to keep his word. “Believe me, father,” she said, “to hear this despicable wretch one would say that his fury was against you more than against me.”

He carried his audacity so far as to feign to be the priest to whom Gemma used to make her confession. She had gone one day to the Church and while preparing herself before the confessional, she saw that the confessor was already in his place awaiting her, at which she wondered, not having seen him pass. At the same time she felt very much disturbed in spirit as generally happened when in the presence of the evil one. She entered the confessional however and began as usual. The voice and ways were indeed those of the confessor; but his talk was foul and scandalous, accompanied by improper gestures.

“My God,” she exclaimed, “what has happened?” At such a sight and such words the angelic child trembled from head to foot, remaining aghast; then her presence of mind returning she hurriedly left the confessional and saw as she did so that the pretended confessor had disappeared.

It was the devil who by his coarse and fiendish ways had sought to deceive her, or else make her lose all confidence in the minister of God. Once however he counterfeited the priest so successfully that, God permitting it, he was able to make the poor child believe that he was really her confessor.

Fortunately I happened at the time to be passing through Lucca, and hearing of the case, I was able, but not without great difficulty, to undeceive her; I was obliged to interpose a formal precept in order to make her regain the peace she had lost and her esteem for the holy priest who was in reality her confessor. Failing in this attempt the enemy made another. He appeared to the servant of God in the form of an angel, resplendent with light, insinuating himself with most subtle cunning so as to throw her off her guard. Then as with Eve in the Garden of Eden, he depicted things in falsest colors. “Look here,” he said, “I can make thee happy if only you wilt swear to obey me.”

Gemma who this time did not feel in her soul the usual disturbance indicating the presence of the demon, stood listening with her wonted simplicity; but God came to her aid. On the first wicked proposal of the miscreant her eyes were opened; she started up, exclaiming: “My God! Mary Immaculate! Make me die rather!” And with these words she rushed at the feigned angel and spat in his face. At the same moment she saw him vanish in the form of fire.

Gemma relating to her director what had happened on another occasion wrote as follows:

“A fresh assault; listen, father: Yesterday after confession, on my return to the house and as soon as I had a moment to myself, for it was the time of my prayer, I knelt down. and began to recite the Rosary of the Five Wounds of Jesus. At the fourth Wound I beheld before me a figure like Jesus, freshly scourged all over, with his heart laid open and bleeding. He began by saying: Is it thus my child that you repay me? Look at me; see how much I have suffered for thee. And now instead you cannot give me the consolation of those penances (those that had only recently been forbidden her). Ah I they were not much; you canst very well continue them as before. ‘No, no,’ I replied, ‘I wish to obey; and if I do what you desire, I disobey.’

“And he: But after all, it is not thy confessor who has forbidden it; it is that . . . (and he meant me, as in reality I had disapproved of those excessive austerities) and you art not in the least obliged to obey him; do as I tell thee—and many other things. At last I was on the point of taking the discipline, as before the prohibition; but no; Jesus helped me; I rose, took holy water, and became calm; not however without receiving a blow or two—not an infrequent gift of Satan. And you know, father, it was he without doubt.”

With a view to protect her from these satanic apparitions, I enjoined on her, under whatever form persons of the other world might appear to her, to begin at once to repeat the words, Viva Gesu! I was unaware that Our Lord Himself had given her a similar remedy in the words “Blessed be Jesus and Mary!” And the docile child in order to obey both, used to repeat the double exclamation. The good spirits always repeated her words, “Viva Gesu! Blessed be Jesus and Mary!” Whereas the malignant ones either did not reply, or else pronounced only a few words, such as “Viva—Blessed” without adding any name. By this means Gemma recognized them, and scorned them accordingly.

In order to move her to vanity, Satan sometimes caused her to see in sleep or awake a crowd of spirits clad in white who placed themselves around her bed to offer her homage. At other times he showed her that letters to her spiritual guides were religiously preserved for some important end. Other representations were tried with similar aim. But all in vain. Gemma was not so easily to be seduced by vain glory, being solidly grounded in humility, as has already been shown.

This spirit of darkness also made an attempt to shake her immense confidence in God. He strove accordingly during her periods of desolation and abandonment to renew in her mind the fear that she would be lost. “And do you not see,” he said to her, “that Jesus does not hear thee, and does not want to know anything more of thee? Why weary thyself running after Him? Give it up, and resign thyself to thy unhappy lot.”

This was the most terrible temptation that agonized many of the greatest saints of the Church; Gemma too felt all its force. But yet, she overcame it, either through the constant habit she had acquired of turning to God with lively faith in every spiritual trial, or because of the special assistance given her by God Himself. Thus she was able to say to me on one occasion: “The devil, contemptible wretch that he is, tries his best. . . . But Jesus, by His words gives me such tranquility that, with all his efforts, he has not been able to shake my confidence, not even for one moment.”

Satan finding all his machinations set at naught by this child, became furious. Throwing off the mask, he took to waging open war against her. He appeared to her repeatedly in horrible forms; at one time as a savage dog, at another as a hideous monster, again as a man in a fury. He used to begin by terrifying her with his horrible and threatening appearance; then he rushed on her, beat her, tore her with his teeth, threw her down, dragged her by the hair, and in other innumerable ways tortured her innocent body.

No one can attribute these things to mere hallucinations; for their effects were but too real—her hair scattered about the room, the bruises and livid marks that remained for days, the excessive pains she felt in all her members, etc. So also were but too real the noises that were heard of blows and of the shaking of her bed, lifted and then thrown down, as remained to be seen. Nor were these assaults and annoyances things of a few moments; they lasted for hours together without cessation, and even during the whole night. Let her give some particulars of them herself. The simplicity of style, and the sincerity with which this candid soul was accustomed to explain things to her spiritual father, will of themselves serve as a commentary on what she says:

“Today I thought I was to be entirely free from that nauseous animal, and instead he has knocked me about greatly. I had gone to bed with a full intention of sleeping, but it turned out otherwise. He began with certain blows that made me fear I should die. He was in the shape of a big black dog and put his paws on my shoulders hurting me greatly. I felt it so much in all my bones that sometimes I thought they were broken. Also, when I was taking holy water he wrenched my arm so violently that I fell from the pain. The bone was dislocated, but went back, because Jesus touched it for me and all was remedied? And in another letter she writes:

“Yesterday too the devil knocked me about. Aunt told me to draw a bucket of water with which I was to fill the room jugs; when passing with jugs in my hands before the image of the Heart of Jesus, to Whom I offered fervent acts of love, I got such a strong blow of a stick on my left shoulder that I fell, but nothing was broken. Even to-day I feel very unwell and everything I do seems to give me pain.”

Again she writes: “Once more I have passed a bad night. The demon came before me as a giant of great height. He beat me fiercely all night, and kept saying to me: For thee there is no more hope of salvation; you art in my hands. I replied that God is merciful, and that therefore I feared nothing. Then giving me a hard blow on the head he said in a rage, Accursed be you!—and disappeared. I went to my room to rest a little and there I found him. He began again to strike me with a knotted rope, and kept on because he wanted me to listen to him while he suggested wickedness. I said no, and he struck harder, and knocked my head violently against the ground.

“At a certain moment it came to my mind to invoke Jesus’ Holy Papa. (thus she used to name the Eternal Father). I called aloud: Eternal Father through the most Precious Blood free Me! I don’t quite know what happened; that contemptible beast dragged me violently from my bed and threw me, dashing my head against the floor with such force that it pains me still. I became senseless and remained lying there until I came to myself a long time afterwards. Jesus be thanked!”

It would take too long to recount all these painful scenes. They happened very often and sometimes continued for days. The poor victim had become in a certain sense inured to them, and, beyond the bodily sufferings they caused her, she ceased to be alarmed at them. She regarded the hellish monster with a serenity like that of a dove looking at any unclean animal. Until I forbade it, she used occasionally to answer him contemptuously. When finally overcome by the invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus he was forced to leave, shuffling precipitately away, the simple child followed him with jubilant laughter. “If you had but seen him, father,” she wrote to me, “how he ran, and how often he tripped as he fled, and gave vent to his rage, you too would have laughed at him. My God! How fetid (i.e., sulfurous smelling) he is, and how horrible to look at! But Jesus has told me not to fear him.” Once I was assisting her when she was ill and in danger of death, and as I sat down in a corner of the room to say my office I presently heard and saw passing me a large dark-colored and furious-looking cat. After rushing round the room it jumped upon the end of the iron bedstead, directly in front of the sick girl, and there crouched with savage looks. I felt my blood curdle at the sight, while Gemma remained quite calm. Dissembling my trouble I said to her: “What is the matter now?”

And she: “Don’t be afraid, father; it is that vile demon who wants to annoy me; but don’t fear, as he will not do you any harm.”

I approached her trembling with holy water and sprinkled her bed. The demon vanished leaving her in perfect serenity as if nothing had happened.

What really frightened her was the fear of offending God by yielding to Satan’s malicious suggestions. Although she was aware of having always so far resisted, the danger none the less seemed to her to be always imminent, and kept her almost beside herself with fear. There was no remedy that she did not use in order to defend herself against those satanic assaults—crosses, relics of saints, scapulars, special prayers; and, above all, filial recourse to God, to His Heavenly Mother, to her Angel Guardian and to her spiritual director.

“Come quickly father,” she wrote, “or at least repeat the exorcisms at a distance; the devil is doing all he can against me. Help me to save my soul, for I fear I am already in the power of Satan. Ah! if you only knew how much I am suffering! Last night how contented he was! He took me by the hair and tore it away saying: Disobedience, disobedience! now there is no more time to amend; come, come with me; and he wanted to take me to Hell. He remained more than four hours tormenting me, and thus I passed the night. I fear so much that listening to him I may displease Jesus.”

It happened at times, though very rarely indeed, that the evil spirit was allowed so to invade her whole person, fettering the powers of her soul and disturbing her imagination, that she seemed almost obsessed. On such occasions it was most pitiable to see her. She herself had conceived such a horror of this deplorable state of being, that the bare thought of it made her grow pale and tremble.

“Oh! God,” she said to me, “I have been in hell, without Jesus, without Mary, without my Angel. If I have come out of it without sin, I owe it, O Jesus, to Thee alone. And yet I am contented, because suffering thus and suffering ceaselessly I know that I am doing Thy most Holy Will.” Doubtless if attacks of this kind were often to be repeated, or were to last for a considerable time, the poor sufferer, though perfectly resigned, would die of anguish.

To the above torments may be added bodily ailments that we conclude were caused her directly by Satan. Also the pains to which I have repeatedly alluded of her participation in the Passion of Our Savior during the periodical piercing of her hands and feet and side; in the crowning with thorns, scourgings, wounds and other torments. Gemma indeed had good reason to be contented at having by so much suffering attained her object and accomplished her mission. The object was to become like the Divine Man of Sorrows, and attain to the most perfect love of God. Her mission was, to serve in our Lord’s hands as an instrument of expiation for the sins of the world.

Exult then, chosen spouse of Christ, purified, tempered, ennobled by the distinctive marks of all the true followers of the Crucified, and be prepared to receive the crown of thy virtues that He has held prepared for thee from Eternity.