Cardinal Gasquet on St. Gemma Galgani's Life
Catharina and I recently started into the biography of St. Gemma Galgani of Lucca. Actually, my copy only arrived in the mail today, though I had been eagerly expecting it for a few days.
But what led me to write this post--and this I found amazing--are a couple lines to be found in the introduction to her life. The life itself was written by the Venerable Fr. Germanus of St. Stanislaus, C.P., a thing wonderful, indeed, when we can read the biography of a saint written by another saint. But the introduction is written by one who was a year later (1914) to be raised to the cardinalate by Pope St. Pius X, the Father Abbot Aidan Gasquet, O.S.B. (I feel privileged to have something of a remote connection to him as he was abbot of Downside Abbey in England where I made a retreat before I was received into the Church.)This man, Fr. Gasquet, became a cardinal on account of his amazing scholarly labors on behalf of the Church; he also served in the Vatican libraries. I can only imagine that his knowledge of saints' lives was vast. Yet he had this to say about the book which I am so happy to have in my hands:
"Personally, I do not know of the life of any Saint in any age of the Church which has brought home the supernatural to my mind more plainly and fully than Father Germanus' story of the life of Gemma Galgani."
by Iosephus @ 12/20/2005 03:06:00 PM
3 comments
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, ora pro nobis
St. Joseph, ora pro nobis
St. Ambrose of Milan, ora pro nobis
St. Dominic, ora pro nobis
St. Francis (and St. Clare), orate pro nobis
St. Catherine of Siena, ora pro nobis
St. Alphonsus Ligouri, ora pro nobis
St. John Chrysostom, ora pro nobis
3 Comments:
I bought the biography of St. Gemma earlier this year, and have read parts of it. It is really inspiring. I have a holy card of St. Gemma, and I have prayed the prayer on the back of it on many of the days since I've received it.
Gasquet has largely been discredited as an historian, and his elevation to the Roman Purple was allegedly due to an oversight (Pius X was allegedly informed that he was a first-rate scholar; we now know that he falsified some of his sources). There is an interesting modern study of Gemma, "The Voices of Gemma Galgani" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226041964/qid=1135153774/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-7211939-2681707?n=507846&s=books&v=glance), which I recently reviewed for the Downside Review.
Since the Pedantic Professor called into question the worth of citing Cardinal Gasquet by pointing out that he was discredited as a scholar, something I still find very strange, I have thought to offer this other man speaking in approbation of Fr. Germanus' biography:
"The Holy Father has charged me to make known to you the great pleasure he derived from reading the book in which you display a deep knowledge of mystical theology and describe the riches of extraordinary graces that Our Lord poured so abundantly into the soul of that innocent maiden. The August Pontiff trusts that by reading this Life, hearts may become more inflamed with that love of the supernatural which the enemies of the Faith strive to obliterate."
-- Cardinal Merry del Val
Which reminds me of something else: who speaks like that anymore? "enemies of the Faith" and "strive to obliterate"? Today, we acknowledge that outside the Faith, we have only brothers and sisters and some others who need to be "more open to the Spirit."
Dear God, give us again saintly pontiffs and cardinals, unafraid to speak boldly and honestly, unafraid of the powers of this earth.
At the end of the biography, the section about the letters received in praise of or in thanksgiving for the biography of the Virgin of Lucca conclude with the following missive:
"Father Lewis Fontava, a Barnabite writing from Naples, says: 'I caused a picture of Gemma to be put under the pillow of a dying Freemason who refused to be reconciled to the Church. That was on Tuesday evening in Holy Week. The next day, Wednesday, of his own accord he asked for the Sacraments.' "
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