God’s earnestness in finding ways to love us always amazes and delights me.
It’s often in the smallest things. Take today’s date, April 28, the day in 1962 that an Italian woman named Gianna Beretta Molla died, giving us a glimpse into heaven.
I hadn’t realized this column would run on Saint Gianna’s feast day until after deciding to write about the “Canticle of Praise” event I attended on April 16 in Grand Forks. The gathering celebrated 20 years of the Saint Gianna and Pietro Molla Maternity Home in Warsaw, North Dakota.
My mother-in-law would call this a “God wink” — an earthly occurrence received as divine consolation. Although the divine designation could be contested, for me, the date parallel points to the tangible ways God makes his presence known.
The web of grace flashes back to 2010, when my middle son’s first-grade class was chosen to have breakfast with Saint Gianna’s son, Pierluigi Molla, a guest of the maternity home. The youngsters dined with this saint’s now-adult child over smiley-faced pancakes at a nearby hotel.
I’d been feeling drawn to Saint Gianna after learning how she’d turned down the suggestion of abortion when troubles arose in her fourth pregnancy. Her courage gave me courage in mothering my own young family as I pondered the sacrificial choice she’d made to choose her child’s life over her own.
Gianna Emmanuela is the child Saint Gianna died to save—the embodiment of life-giving love. In 2022, I interviewed this sweet woman, so endeared now to the North Dakota maternity home which bears her parents’ names and provides harbor for pregnant women in turmoil. At that recent evening, I met and embraced this saint’s daughter.
It almost didn’t happen. The week prior, I had fallen into despair over some difficult news. A couple friends were counting on me to join them, though, so I reluctantly went. As soon as I stepped into the opening Mass at Saint Michael’s Church with Cardinal Raymond Burke presiding, my burdens seemed lighter.
Hearing voices singing like angels from the choir loft, absorbing God’s word of hope, and receiving Jesus revived and refreshed me. By the time I got to the beautiful reception at the Alerus Center, the touch of heaven had penetrated my soul, and it was heightened as story after inspiring story poured forth from the last two decades of this ministry of love.
As one former house resident said of founder Mary Pat Jahner, “Her role was to love us.”
I wish everyone could experience this divine reach, especially those who feel far from God. Darkness can seem too near, but as I was reminded the next day, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
That blessed night reveling in life, I was reminded that God is a good, loving father who misses us when we are anxious and distracted, and waits to bless us if we but turn toward the light and open our arms to receive.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on April 28, 2024.]
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