A Book Review… Sainthood In Married Life
By MITCHELL KALPAKGIAN
The Journey of Our Love: The Letters of Saint Gianna Beretta and Pietro Molla, edited by Elio Guerriero (Pauline Books & Media, Boston: 2014); 282 pp.; $17.95. Available through www.pauline.org.
Many know the courageous story of St. Gianna’s sacrifice of her life for the sake of her newborn fourth child and recall her words, “This time my pregnancy will be difficult and they will have to save one or the other, and I want them to save the baby.”
Despite conflicting medical advice, she never wavered in this choice and insisted that the life of her child mattered and deserved ultimate respect. She would never consider the idea of losing a child for the sake of her own life. While this heroic act of Christian love exalts Gianna into the rank of great saints, her marital life, as recorded in these letters, also gives a portrait of holiness and illuminates the nature of sainthood in married life.
Although these private letters of husband and wife from 1955 to 1961 were of course never intended for dissemination for the general public, the cause for the beatification and canonization of St. Gianna gave this correspondence special significance. The life, work, writings, and even letters of saints evoke great interest because they reveal the mind, heart, and soul of sanctity.
When asked for permission for the publication of the letters, Pietro granted their daughter Gianna Emanuela the authority to make available the correspondence, but requested publication only after his death.
In a letter to her father after his death in 2010, she writes, “Now that you are in Heaven, with Mamma forever, I really don’t know how to thank the Lord for the immense gift he gave me, together with the gift of life: two holy parents.”
In reading and transcribing the letters, Gianna Emanuela marveled at the depth of her parents’ marital love: “. . . how great was the grace that you and Mamma had received from the Lord and our Heavenly Mother: the grace of meeting each other, of becoming ‘one heart and soul,’ with all of Heaven’s blessings; I understood completely that your love was so great, could be so great, profound, and true because the Lord and our Heavenly Mother were always present.”
These letters capture the beauty of a love story in both its natural and supernatural dimensions.
Reading these letters illuminates the greatness of marital love and sacramental marriage. Although the subject matter of the letters is naturally limited to the thoughts and feelings of an engaged couple and then later to the concerns and anxieties of parents always communicating about their children while separated for weeks or months because of Pietro’s travels as a businessman and engineer, they reveal the beauty of pure hearts devoted to each other and their young family.
The letters reflect the exquisite delicacy of love’s nature, always centered on the beloved and always sensitive to the happiness of the other. Gianna writes, “My Pietro, I’m very happy because I love you, and you love me, and I will always do everything I can to be a good, loving, understanding, and always smiling wife.” Gianna always aspired to imitate the good wife praised in Prov. 31: “She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.” Both husband and wife do all to please the other in small and great ways.
During the times of separation they corresponded with each other almost every day, always thinking of each other. Gianna writes, “How can I thank you for not letting a day go by without sending me word?” Even though the letters often deal with prosaic matters like travel itineraries or children’s illnesses, the communication never becomes humdrum because of the tender sentiments and intense emotions of husband and wife who cannot express their love enough, who cannot stop thanking God for the blessing of each other, and who never cease to praise God for their marriage and their children — their “treasures,” as they call them.
In Gianna’s words, “I wish you could have been there with me again, so I could embrace you and kiss you and thank you for your great love for me and all the joys you’ve brought me these past three years.” As the letters show, the more one loves, the more love one has to give, and the joys of sacramental marriage are inexhaustible.
Gianna and Pietro cherish these letters as priceless treasures of inestimable value. Pietro writes, “I have here with me your dearest letters that I read, reread, and kissed,” and Gianna overflows with joy to receive his correspondence: “And you can’t imagine how happy I am to read your affectionate letters.” Such sentiments capture the happiness of love’s purest joys and intimate bonds: spontaneous acts of kindness, expressions of love, gestures of thoughtfulness, and complimentary words that bless human life.
In the smallest of details and in the midst of ordinary days, the love of Gianna and Pietro radiates a light and beauty that punctuate the regimen of daily routine with a grace that breathes life into the heart and makes marriage the richest of human joys.
In Gianna’s words, “It’s true that love is the most beautiful sentiment that God has given us.” With unaffected candor and sincerity the letters never cease to give thanks and appreciation for the precious gift of love which they never take for granted. During their engagement Pietro writes, “I could not have received a greater or more ardently desired grace from our Heavenly Mother,” and Gianna responds, “I don’t have words to thank you for all your thoughtfulness and kindness toward me.”
Husband and wife never hesitate to express their love, demonstrate their affection, and identify their happiness as the gift of each other: “You are everything to me, dearest Gianna,” writes Pietro, referring to his wife as a source of “infinite joy.” Their love is always new, fresh, and revitalizing. Husband and wife always make each other feel special.
Their love never stagnates or becomes commonplace. Throughout the seven years from their engagement in April 11, 1955, to Gianna’s death on April 28, 1962, the love of husband and wife remained devoted, loyal, strong, and constant, always growing in depth and fullness. They cannot compliment each other enough, Pietro calling his wife “my jewel, delicate and beautiful in virtue and goodness, in the beauty of your smile.”
Gianna will not be outdone in generosity, reciprocating with her own words of praise: “You’ve got a heart so big, good, and understanding.” She is so touched by the letters he sends every day because they reflect a tenderness and affection that reveal a heart in the image of God: “These letters, your words, tell me of all your love for me and your dearest treasures, words that mirror your great, sweet soul, your great heart, your faith, your spirit of prayer.”
The letters are full of fond memories that recall the places where they enjoyed happy moments together, like skiing on the slopes of Livrio. Their intimate oneness as husband and wife made each feel the other’s near presence when separated. Gianna writes, “I feel so safe, so close to you!” The two have become one in such an indissoluble union that, in Gianna’s words, “Your joys are mine, and all that worries you or makes you sad worries me and makes me sad, too.” Pietro feels the same intimate bond: “If you only knew, my dearest Gianna, how close I feel you…and how much I want to see you again and never leave your side.”
The two have become one in mind, heart, body, and soul.
Pietro cherishes in Gianna the beauty of her soul which shines in the serene joy of her gaze and smile, the light from her eyes reminding him of the radiance of Heaven, and he calls her “a wife of gold, more marvelous than the dawn.” He marvels that he always discovers in his wife more graces (“I am still finding in you new virtues of sacrifice, patience, understanding, and goodness, and always of so much affection”). During his travels he confesses that his love multiplies (“While I am so far from you, I find it growing even more”), and he promises that in his return from New York he will not only love her “as before” but even “more than before.”
Gianna also feels the miracle of love’s growth and infiniteness in their relationship, mentioning a sermon of Fr. Mariano that reminded her of God’s plan of love: “He also said that spouses who have always loved each other will find in Heaven that the time they have loved on earth was short, and they will rejoice to know that they have all of eternity before them to continue to love each other.” The holy love of husband and wife can never die.
Mystery And Holiness
These letters, then, inspire a rediscovery of the magnificence of marriage, its divine origin and heavenly destiny; its simple pleasures and great joys; its attention to the daily kindnesses of ordinary life and its sublime vision of heavenly beatitude.
The love story of Gianna and Pietro Molla demonstrates again how, in St. Paul’s words, the invisible things of God are known by the visible. The love story of marriage between man and woman hints of the union of Christ the bridegroom and his bride the soul. God thirsts for souls in the way Gianna and Pietro long for each other.
The love of St. Gianna and Pietro Molla illuminates the truth about the mystery and holiness of marital love that contemporary society has subverted by divorce, cohabitation, and same-sex marriage that despoil it of its sacredness, wonder, beauty, and grandeur.
When Christ spoke to the Pharisees about divorce and stated that “it was not so from the beginning,” He referred to a divine plan so perfectly realized in the marriage of this beloved couple.
+ + +
(Dr. Kalpakgian is a professor emeritus of humanities.)
