Could you give your life for your child? Read about St. Gianna Molla from the words of her husband and the daughter she gave her life for in this beautiful excerpt.
A Mother’s Ultimate Choice
from Gianna Emmanuela Molla, the daughter St. Gianna gave her life for
When I grew up and was able to understand my Mom’s extreme sacrifice which crowned her exemplary Christian life, it was my Dad who explained to me the reason for her choice, thus helping me to overcome the feelings of guilt I had concerning my siblings, from childhood, and to cheer me up.
The fundamental choice Mom made at the end of the second month of her pregnancy with me, as my uncle Fr. Giuseppe also always tells me, when a voluminous fibromyoma, a benign tumor, appeared in her uterus. As Dad testified in April 1973, in the book he dedicated to my siblings and me, Mom was free in that worrisome situation to choose and decide between three solutions:
The first: remove the fibroid, terminate that pregnancy, and exclude the possibility of having other pregnancies (the safest and the least risky solution for her life in that pregnancy and for the future).
The second: remove the fibroid, terminate that pregnancy, and preserve the possibility of other pregnancies (the safest and the least risky solution for her life in that pregnancy and not for the future).
The third: remove the fibroid, do not terminate that pregnancy, and preserve the possibility of other pregnancies (the riskiest and the most worrying solution for her life in that pregnancy and for the future).
My Mom chose, decided, and asked the surgeon for the third solution. And before the surgery to remove the fibroma, well aware of the risk that the continuation of the pregnancy would have entailed—the risk that a suture, made on the uterus in the first months of pregnancy, could give way, causing a secondary rupture of the uterus and mortal danger to herself, as well as to the child—she begged the surgeon to save the life she was carrying in her womb, mine, and entrusted herself to prayer and to Providence.
My life was saved. Mom thanked the Lord and spent the seven months leading up to childbirth with incomparable fortitude and unchanged commitment as a mother and doctor.
How Could Gianna Make This Choice?
from Pietro Molla, her loving husband
It was a choice that can be well understood and rightly evaluated only in the light of Gianna’s firm convictions, her conscience as a mother and her unquestionable trust in Providence.
Gianna was firmly convinced that the baby she was carrying in her womb was a person to be loved, to be respected and not an object on which to exercise one’s will. It was certainly a dramatic choice.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that it must have been a tremendous sacrifice for this woman. After all, it was a cruel dilemma: either sacrifice the child or give one’s life with the consequence of leaving four children without a mother; a choice to which many object. I do not feel like saying anything about it except to emphasize Gianna’s trust in Providence.
Gianna, you knew that the maternal contribution in raising, educating, and forming our children has no equal, but in your humility and above all in the fullness of your trust in Providence, you were persuaded not to do an act of injustice to our three children, because in that painful circumstance the one who needed you primarily and indispensably was the creature in your womb, and while considering your duty to raise, educate, and form our children no less seriously than the duty to ensure bringing them into the world after conception, you relied fully on Providence for their education and formation if this new maternity would have required the sacrifice of your life.
St. Gianna Molla, pray for us!
ooo
This article is taken from a chapter in An Exemplary Couple by Valentina Di Marco which is available from TAN Books.
