“I would not be here if I was not loved so much.”
Do you know the voice of the person who spoke these words? These words were spoken by a daughter who lovingly calls her mother “Saint Mommy.”
Who is this Saint Mommy? Gianna Beretta Molla was born in 1922 becoming the 10th of 13 children. She went onto become a doctor in 1949 and then opened a medical office. She specialized in providing healthcare for mothers, the elderly, the poor and children. She chose marriage as her primary vocation in 1955. Motherhood then became her secondary vocation having three children over the next four years; welcoming each child as a wonderful gift from God. Over the course of the next few years, Gianna had two miscarriages. After this, Gianna became pregnant a sixth time and then her doctor found a tumor in her uterus. She was given three options by the doctor: an abortion, a complete hysterectomy or the removal of the tumor only. The abortion and the hysterectomy options were the safest options for Gianna, but the abortion would mean death for her child and the hysterectomy would mean no chance of giving birth to any future children. While it was the riskiest option for her life, Gianna chose the removal of the tumor only, since it was the least dangerous option for her unborn child. The tumor was removed by a surgeon and Gianna’s baby was saved for the time being.
However, the tumor removal surgery caused an additional complication putting either Gianna’s life or the life of her baby at risk. As the baby’s due date approached, Gianna carried on her work in her vocation as a doctor until about a week before the baby was to be born. Days before the baby was to be born, Gianna made her wishes known to her husband, “Pietro, If you must decide between the baby’s life and mine, do not hesitate, choose, and this I require, the baby’s, the child’s, do save the baby.”
On Holy Saturday 1962, Gianna allowed her baby to see the light, giving birth to her baby girl via a caesarian section. The baby was given her mother’s first name: Gianna. A week after giving birth to her baby, Gianna passed away from an infection at the age of 39 and was born into the light of heaven, following the lead of the Good Shepherd. Gianna’s baby girl grew up to carry on not only her mother’s name, but also carrying on her mother’s Catholic faith and her mother’s secondary vocation as a doctor. In 2004, Gianna and her siblings attended her mother’s canonization ceremony along with their father, making this the first time a husband witnessed his wife’s canonization. Today, Gianna travels telling the beautiful love story of her parents; telling how this love overflowed into the fruitfulness of children; telling of how her parents sacrificed for the children and telling of the responsibility children have to carry on the message they learned from their parents.
In many ways, Gianna’s story is our story. This is our shared story, because Gianna and each one of us had the same first voice we heard, had the same first teacher of the faith and had the same first faith lesson taught to us.
The first voice we heard in the womb was the voice of our mother. The peaceful and calming effect of hearing our mother’s voice had such a powerful impact that our heart rate would actually slow down when we heard our mother’s voice in the womb. This first voice we heard in the womb echoed the voice we heard in today’s Gospel. Today, we heard the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, say to us “my sheep hear my voice.” Right from birth, Gianna and each of us recognized, knew and preferred the sound of our mother’s voice. When she gave birth to us, our mother took on the role of being our first teacher of the faith and taught us our first faith lesson: “I would not be here if I was not loved so much.” These are the words each of us should say and pray today in thanksgiving for our mothers who carried us for those months when we were at our most vulnerable.
While we may be tempted to view the love our own mothers for us as being somehow less heroic than the love of St. Gianna for her daughter, the reality is the love of our mothers is especially heroic in our country where the mother’s unspoken message as she looks at her newborn baby is “I didn’t have to, but I wanted to, because I love you.” In this way, St. Gianna and every mother here share in the sacrificial and life-giving motherhood of Mother Mary; this poor, afraid, unmarried and unprepared teenage girl who said “yes” to life so we could receive our savior and Good Shepherd. We give thanks both for Mary’s sacrifice as well as the sacrifice of our Father who gave us his only begotten son so that we may have eternal life through Jesus.
We are all sharers in the beautiful story of God Our Father and Mother Mary, their love for each other and how that love overflowed into the fruit of thy womb Jesus. As this Jesus hung upon the cross, he voiced his wish for us to behold his mother, for his mother to become our own mother. Our shared story then is one of being held and carrying on. As our mother held us in the womb, she gave us the first loving voice we heard, she gave us life and taught us our first faith lesson. In this way, our mothers prepared us for the rest of life with Jesus, our Good Shepherd, who holds us in his hand as we hear his voice call each one of us by name, as we hear his voice teach us all the essential faith lessons we need and as we hear him call us to follow him to eternal life.
Jesus gives eternal life for his sheep and he also provides other shepherds to carry on his mission. This carrying on his mission is our vocation. On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, it is important for us to remember that both sheep and shepherds have a vocation and we pray that each of us will faithfully answer Jesus’ call on how he wants us to carry on his mission. No matter what our rank or status, we sheep and shepherds all share the same universal vocation: that is the call to holiness. This universal vocation means that we are each called to make Jesus the most important person in our lives, to follow in his footsteps, to give him the glory with all we do and to discern the primary vocation Jesus is calling us to.
If our universal vocation is all about making Jesus the most important person in our lives, then our primary vocation helps determine who the second most important person in our lives will be. We pray that Jesus may help us discern whether we are being called to a primary vocation to priesthood, religious life, marriage or the single life.
Many of us also have a secondary vocation, whether it be as a doctor, a deacon, a mother or some other secondary vocation. We pray that God continues to remind us that every secondary vocation should always enhance our primary vocation.
On this Mother’s Day, we give thanks to the Lord who chose Mary to be a mother to all of us. We also thank God for giving us St. Gianna as the patron saint for mothers, physicians and unborn children. We give thanks to the Lord for giving us our mothers who followed Mary and St. Gianna’s example of saying “yes” to the Lord and his gift of life so that each of us could be here today.
Today, we give thanks, and we also look to the future, when one day, after we have faithfully lived out our vocations, God-willing, we will be born into the light of heaven. Here, we will hear the Good Shepherd’s voice. As we look at Jesus, that first faith lesson taught to us by our mothers will come back to us taking on a whole new meaning as we hear our own voice say: “I would not be here if I was not loved so much.”