CHAPTER XXX

Gemma’s Death and Burial

THE CRUEL malady has run its course; Gemma has nothing more left than a breath of life. Her whole body is in agony, the pallor of death is depicted on her countenance, she is stretched motionless on her bed in aspect so pitiable that one sees in her an image of Jesus expiring on the Cross.

Four or five days before she died she became so heavy that three strong persons, even the workmen of the establishment, could scarcely lift her although reduced to skin and bone, and so slight in figure that a baby might have moved her. “We have managed” said the Sister, “a great many sick people, but never have we met anything like this.”

They expressed their wonder to Gemma herself, and she being in a position to know, candidly replied: “It is not I, you know, that weigh so.”

One is forced to believe that the devil had something to do with it for some malignant end, probably to increase the torments of the poor victim. And it was noticed that she had no sooner expired than she returned to her natural weight.

We have come to Wednesday in Holy Week. Gemma seems in ecstasy, she raises her eyes from time to time and fixing her gaze on Heaven, cries with an expression of intense yearning: “Jesus! Jesus!” Then at a given hour she is rapt in ecstasy just as happened so often during her life; but only for a short time. On coming to herself the Sister asked her if during those moments Jesus had consoled her; and she without hesitation answered:

“Oh! if you, Sister, could see an atom of what Jesus has shown me, what joy it would cause you!” And the good Sister declares that in saying these words Gemma seemed to be totally transfigured. On the same day she received the Viaticum with sentiments of the greatest devotion, but, as had always been her custom, without any extraordinary outward manifestation of fervor. (From the 23rd of March when last she went to Church she had not received Holy Communion.)

On the following day, Holy Thursday, a day so divinely solemnized in her heart, she asked to receive Our Lord, and as the priest made some difficulty about giving her Communion again as Viaticum she said that rather than be deprived of so much she would willingly bear the burning thirst and acted accordingly.

“She seemed a Saint,” says a witness, “sitting in bed with her hands joined and downcast eyes, her face all radiant and smiling in spite of the relentless malady that was consuming her.”

Having received Holy Communion she remained absorbed in deep recollection which after two hours became ecstatic, not however so as to hinder her answering persons who now and then spoke to her of spiritual things. During this ecstasy she seemed to behold a Crown of Thorns and said: “Before You art finished, oh how much more has to be gone through!” And turning to the Sister she added: “What a day tomorrow (Good-Friday) will be!” And that Friday came.

Towards ten o’clock in the morning the lady friend who was with her feeling that she herself was growing faint from fatigue and loss of sleep resolved to go to her house close by to rest a little, but Gemma said to her: “Don’t leave me until I am nailed to the Cross, I have to be crucified with Jesus. He has said to me that His children have to be crucified.” She remained, and behold soon after the suffering child entered into full ecstasy, opened her arms by degrees and remained thus until nearly half past one. Her appearance was a mixture of grief, love, desolation, and tranquility. She never spoke, but yet her silence was most eloquent. She was in agony with Jesus Crucified.

The bystanders in astonishment gazed at her with insatiable earnestness. One of them wrote to me as follows: “Look at Jesus dying on the Cross; that was the appearance of Gemma in those moments.”

She continued to suffer the agony of death during the whole or that day, the following night and Saturday morning. It seemed as if she would expire from moment to moment, submerged in an ocean of excruciating torments in her body, and much more so in her soul.

About eight o’clock on Holy Saturday morning she received Extreme Unction in the full exercise of all her faculties, following all the prayers of the sacred rite with singular devotion, and striving her best, though with weak voice, to repeat the answers. The greatest suffering of Our Lord in His Agony on the Cross was, according to the Saints, His apparent abandonment by His Eternal Father; add that abandonment, too truly real, by men. Of all this He Himself complained from the Cross, and Gemma in this also had to be like Him.

It would naturally be asked with some surprise, why our dying Saint in her moments of greatest need was abandoned by her confessors and directors, and spiritual guides, and that only a few pious women stood by her moved rather by charitable sympathy at the sight of so much suffering than by the desire to be of assistance to her. But it was so; because God so willed in order to put a climax to the martyrdom and merits of His faithful Servant.

The priest of a Church near at hand brought her the Viaticum and disappeared: the Curate of the parish anointed her and went his way, returning only at the last moment to read the recommendation of her soul; the extraordinary confessor, called expressly by her, heard her confession in a few moments, and withdrew. Her ordinary confessor who alone, having directed her from her infancy, knew thoroughly all the mysteries of her life, and would have been able to help and console her in the midst of such pains, temptations and battles, only showed himself for a few moments although the poor soul had asked him several times to come and see her. I myself being at a distance, knowing nothing of her imminent danger and great need, neither thought of going or of writing a consoling letter to her. Thus Gemma was left alone to suffer with Jesus only.

As soon as her last sickness had taken a violent form she asked to have me called by telegram; but on its being made known to her in spirit that God asked this additional sacrifice at her hands, she said no more about it. And when others reminded her of me, having shown by a modest smile that she bore me in her mind, she replied: “I seek for nothing more; I have made the sacrifice of everything and of everyone to God; now I prepare to die.”

God in His turn withdrew, and allowed not a ray of light to enter His Martyr’s mind nor a spark of consolation to move her heart. In fine wasted by the violence of her disease; crushed under the weight of immense desolation; tormented in all her faculties of soul and body by the ministers of hell; without comfort from Heaven or earth, this innocent soul raised her feeble voice and said: “Now it is indeed true that nothing more remains to me, Jesus, I recommend my poor soul to Thee . . . Jesus!”

It was the Consummatum est and the In manus tuas of Our Savior dying on the Cross. These were Gemma’s last words. The victim was offered, and nothing now remained but to breathe her last breath in completion of her sacrifice. Another half-hour passed. Gemma is seated on her bed, her head resting on the shoulder of one of her benefactresses. Her youthful friend Euphemia, kneeling before her, like Magdalene at the feet of the dying Christ, with head bowed down is holding her hand pressed to her own breast. The nursing Sister and all the members of the family are standing around contemplating the affecting scene. Gemma seems absorbed in peaceful thought. Then quite suddenly, while all eyes are fixed on her angelic face still beautiful despite the ravages of such a sickness, she smiled a heavenly smile, and letting her head drop on one side ceased to live—just as the Gospel tells of Our Redeemer on the Cross.

No one perceived that she was really dead; for besides having no Specific agony, she underwent no muscular strain in breathing her last. There was no sigh of oppression or suffocation; her last movement was like a smile of salutation and nothing more, a bidding farewell to her innocent body. In a word, her death was truly the “sleep of the just” her birth to eternal life.

This blessed death happened an hour after midday on Holy Saturday, the 11th of April, 1903. Gemma had once said to her Aunt: “I have asked Jesus to let me die on a great solemnity: what a delightful thing to die on a great Feast!”

Yes, what a charming thing to die on the Solemnity of Our Lord’s Resurrection, after having kept Good Friday on the Cross with Him, sharing in all His Agony! After Gemma’s death the Sisters took charge of her body, and at the suggestion of one who well knew her old longings to be a Passionist, they clothed her in brown with on her breast the badge of the Passion, which is the distinctive mark of that Institute.

They put a crown of flowers on her head; her beads around her neck, and joined her hands on her breast as she used to hold them when in ecstasy. The charming smile that played on her lips as she expired remained there. Her whole body was so composed and at ease, breathing something indescribably celestial, that it appeared to be the body of a living person who either was asleep or in ecstatic communion with God.

Those present remained riveted in ceaseless admiration. At the announcement of her death numbers ran to pray by her remains. Even the little children of the family that had made their home hers, ran also, and seemed not to wish to leave her; the very youngest of them, two or three years old, wished to kiss her hands and kept saying, “Gemma, Gemma!”

The old priest of the family, already spoken of, who more than others venerated and loved the angelic girl, betook himself to her room, and remained there all Easter Sunday in prayer and tears, until her blessed remains were taken away. Among others present was the worthy priest to whom, as we have seen, Gemma wished to make a general confession. He was filled with such reverence at seeing her that, throwing himself on his knees, he said aloud: “O Gemma, you hast at thy feet a great sinner, pray to Jesus for me!”

The concourse continued all Easter Sunday until her body was removed; some took flowers from her Crown; some touched their objects of devotion to her hands and feet; others tried to get some of her hair, and so indiscreet were they that they would have taken it all if the nursing Sisters had not stopped them. One of the priests withdrew to pray in her room after her body had been removed and was heard to say: “I feel that I am in a Sanctuary, of which that bed is the altar; how well one can pray here! I would gladly remain here.”

When he had left the room he returned again saying: “Blessed Gemma who knew how to live as an angel, and die a Saint.”

Again a third time he came back to look at the room. On Easter Sunday a little before the Ave Maria the body was removed to the Cemetery. The venerable Company of the Rose (Church of Saint Rose) carried out the ceremony with great solemnity; but the eldest son of the family in which Gemma had lived, a student at the University, wished to share the privilege of carrying the precious treasure on his shoulders; he did so with one other of the family and two of the Confraternity. The hallowed remains were put in a wooden coffin in which was placed a crystal tube containing the following inscription on parchment by the Reverend D. Robert Andreuccetti, Official of the above-named Church of Saint Rose:

GEMMA GALGANI: born in Camigliano of Lucca on the twelfth of March, 1878, of Henry Galgani and Aurelia Landi. Of spotless life and singular piety, she gave admirable proofs of all Christian Virtues. Tried from her childhood by serious domestic misfortunes, purified by long and painful infirmities borne with edifying resignation, she found her only comfort in constant devotion to Jesus Crucified to Whom she ardently desired to consecrate herself in the Institute of Saint Paul of the Cross.

Ripe for heaven she winged her flight thither on

Holy Saturday, eleventh of Apri1,1903. Live you with the angels, holy soul, and pray for us.

When all was in order and the coffin placed on a rich bier adorned with flowers and borne by pious persons, the reverent procession, in which the clergy and a crowd of devout people took part, proceeded to the cemetery. All wish to go the whole of the long distance on foot.

The Easter Solemnity always contrasts strongly with a funeral ceremony. This time the contrast was most exceptional and most eloquent. The procession was like the return from a nuptial Feast. The soul of the departed Virgin had gone with the angels to celebrate Our Lord’s Resurrection in Heaven: and now men were taking back those put-off garments, to bury them until that day when she would want to use them again. She was buried in the open in a privileged tomb over which was placed the following inscription:

GEMMA GALGAluI of Lucca a most innocent virgin, who in her twenty-fifth year, consumed rather by the fire of Divine Love than by the violence of disease, flew into the arms of her Heavenly Spouse on Holy Saturday the eleventh of April, 1903. Peace be to thee, O sweet soul, in company with the angels.

The intense grief that overwhelmed the family at Gemma’s death, and the shock it caused them all made them forget what was previously agreed upon, namely, that in the event of her death they would have her heart examined in hopes of finding some extraordinary marks.

After the burial they remembered this and resolved to put it into execution at once. Many days however were spent in taking the legal steps before the civil authorities; then when all was ready on Friday the 24th of April, the twelfth day after the death of the Servant of God, they proceeded to exhume her body. It was found just as when placed in the coffin, but not without signs of incipient decomposition. It was uncovered and the heart removed this heart showed no sign of decomposition; but, on the contrary, was fresh, healthy, flexible, ruddy and full of blood, precisely as in a living person; this greatly surprised the professional men deputed to make the autopsy.

The shape of the heart too was singular; for, contrary to the usual form, both faces were very much flattened, and the sides greatly widened; so that the width was greater than the length. But what was not their astonishment when on opening the heart it was found that the blood in both ventricles and in the orifices was still fresh and red and ran freely over the marble slab on which they were operating?

Everyone knows as a matter of fact, that immediately after death, on the body becoming cold, all the blood contained in the heart leaves it, or else, if the becoming-cold is rapid, it congeals and loses its vivid color. How much more likely should not this be thirteen days after death, and death from an infectious disease?

That heart that was a furnace of celestial fire; it so beat with pure love of God, that, unable to contain itself in its natural cavity, it raised and greatly curved three ribs; its fire burned the exterior corresponding part of the pectoral region and whatever touched it; that heart could not die!

It was a mistake that it should have been cut open by the hand of man. But God permitted that so it should happen in order to manifest a prodigy that otherwise would have passed unobserved. As regards the abnormal shape of this wonderful heart, the only possible explanation of it would seem to be the violence of Divine Love with which it was on fire, of which we have already had proof.

It must be noted that Gemma never showed any symptom of heart disease that could account for such a strange effect. Her heart was always healthy and robust and, except during the time of ecstasy and of her mystic spiritual martyrdom, never manifested the least irregularity; hence on the cessation of those ecstatic emotions it returned in an instant to its normal state. She was rather anemic during the last months of her life; but who would dare to say that a short period of anemia could distort the organ of life to such a degree? Worse still if this phenomenon were attributed to the decomposition of the tissues during those thirteen days in the grave; for the decomposition of a member together with freshness of the blood contained in it would be a manifest contradiction; likewise the destruction of the tissues and the vivid freshness of their color are things that cannot co-exist.

Despite the incredulous then, let us acknowledge the miracle and bless its Divine Author Who is always wonderful in His Saints.

Having brought this Life of Gemma to an end, I implore of Thee, Divine Master, that these pages may make known to all how good You art, and how sweet it is to serve and love Thee only, as did Thy faithful Servant Gemma Galgani.