(C.D. Stampley Enterprises, Charlotte, NC 2001). Used with permission.

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For expectant mothers

St. Gerard Majella (1726-1755)

Feast day: October 16

The first expectant mothers who invoked St. Gerard Majella did so at a time when many mothers and infants did not survive childbirth. Although most pregnancies these days end happily, expectant mothers still invoke St. Gerard to protect them and safeguard the life of their unborn child.

Gerard Majella was born in Mura Lucano, a town fifty miles south of Naples. While still a little boy he showed signs of piety, so much so that after he made his First Communion he was granted permission to receive every other day, a rare privilege for the time. His mother said her little boy Òwas born for Heaven.

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Gerard was twelve when his father died. So he could help support the family, his mother apprenticed Gerard to a tailor in town. The man was mean-spirited and irreligious. He mocked Gerard for giving one third of his pay to charity and spending so much time praying before the Blessed Sacrament. But the tailor's foreman was worse: he beat Gerard on any pretext.

After four years Gerard's apprenticeship ended. He was qualified to go into business for himself, but instead he took a Job as a servant in the residence of the bishop of Lacedogna. The man was a notorious tyrant who cursed and abused his household staff. Most servants left after a few days, but Gerard stayed for three years, until the bishop died. Gerard believed that by enduring the Anger and abuse of others patiently, he was cultivating the virtue of humility.

With the bishop's death, Gerard did at last open his own tailor shop. He was nineteen years old, and he worked at his trade for seven years. Gerard's Ambition, however, was to enter a religious order.

He applied for admittance to the Capuchins, but the friars rejected him because his health was so poor. Then, in 1749, when Gerard was 23, a group of priests from the newly founded Redemptorist Congregation arrived in Muro Lucano to preach a mission. Gerard was deeply impressed by the eloquence and devotion of these priests. He asked the mission team if he could join the Redemptorists as a lay brother. Like the Capuchins, they expressed their concern about Gerard's health and refused.

Gerard would not give up. He pestered the fathers so relentlessly that when the Redemptorists were about to leave Mura, one of the priests suggested to Gerard's mother that she lock her son in his room so they could depart without causing a scene.

In fact, Gerard did chase after the Redemptorists and pleaded so persistently that at last one of the priests, Father Paul Cafaro, sent Gerard to the Redemptorist house at Deliceto. Father Cafaro gave Gerard a letter for the master of novices in which he described the new recruit as Òuseless, but left the final decision of what should be done with Gerard to the superiors at Deliceto.

In the novitiate Gerard worked so hard and advanced in holiness so quickly that St. Alphonsus de Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, intervened and granted permission for him to take his vows as a lay brother early.

The three years of Gerard's religious life were an extraordinary time. St. Alphonsus and his fellow Redemptorists found that the frail tailor from Mura Lucano was a miracle-worker. At least twenty cases are recorded of Gerard bringing sinners to repentance by revealing to them secret sins they had been unwilling to confess to a priest. We have testimony from eyewitnesses who swear they saw Gerard levitate while he was deep in prayer. A poor family said that by Gerard's prayer, their meager supply of wheat lasted for months until the next harvest. Fishermen asserted that during a storm Gerard walked across the waves to lead their boat to safety. A mother and father credited Gerard with restoring life to their son after the boy had fallen off a cliff.

Today Gerard is most often invoked by pregnant women. Two stories tell us how Gerard became the patron of expectant mothers. On one occasion he visited a woman who was in danger of dying in childbirth. She begged Gerard to help her, and by his prayers the woman and the baby came through the delivery safely.

Another time Gerard was leaving the home of his friends the Pirofalo family when one of the young daughters of the house called after him; he had dropped his handkerchief. "Keep it," Gerard said. Someday you'll find it useful. A few years later, after Gerard had died, that same young woman was in labor. The delivery was going badly and the midwives feared the young mother and the unborn infant would die. Recalling what Gerard had said to her years before, the young woman asked for his handkerchief, pressed it to her stomach, and prayed to Gerard to fulfill his promise and help her. At once the danger passed and the woman delivered a strong, healthy child.

The darkest time in Gerard's life came in 1754. A young woman in Lacedogna named Neria Caggiano wanted to enter the convent of San Salvatore but she did not have the necessary dowry. Gerard admired the nuns of San Salvatore and had directed other young women with vocations to the religious life to this particular convent. When Neria asked for his help, Gerard was happy to oblige. He solicited contributions from his friends until he had collected enough for Neria's dowry.

She entered San Salvatore, but stayed barely three weeks. Neria had no vocation, but she could not bring herself to admit this to her family and friends. Instead, she said she had left because the nuns were irredeemably wicked. Many of Neria's friends had a hard time believing her. The nuns were friends of Brother Gerard. A man so saintly would not have anything to do with religious hypocrites.

Neria realized the only way to make her story credible was to slander Gerard. She began by making broad hints of things she learned at the convent about Gerard. Once she had made people suspicious, she went to her confessor, Father Benigno Bonaventura, and told him that Gerard had seduced Nicoletta Capucci. The Capuccis were devoted supporters of the Redemptorists and close friends of Gerard and his superior, St. Alphonsus. Gerard was a frequent guest at the Capucci house. Under his influence, two of the Capucci daughters had entered the convent of San Salvatore. If Neria's story was true, Gerard was a monster.

Father Bonaventura commanded Neria to write a letter to St. Alphonsus detailing her accusation. Then he asked her permission, which she gave readily to send a letter of his own to Alphonsus asserting that he believed what Neria had told him in the confessional.

The two letters were a devastating blow to Alphonsus. Gerard was the pride of his order. How could a young man of such apparent holiness, a man said to work miracles, have corrupted a young girl?

Alphonsus sent Father Andrew Villani, one of his most trusted colleagues, to investigate the charges. Father Villani met with Neria and Father Bonaventura. Both asserted that everything they had written about Gerard was true.

Under the circumstances, Alphonsus had no choice but to confront Gerard. He summoned him and read the two letters aloud. He waited to hear what Gerard would say, but the young lay brother said nothing at all. Under the circumstances, Gerard's silence was highly suspicious. Alphonsus would have been within his rights to expel Gerard from the Redemptorists, yet he held back. Instead, he sequestered Gerard from all contact with the outside world, and he forbade him to receive Holy Communion.

Why did Gerard keep silence? For two reasons, both of which were hard to accept in his own day and are even harder to understand in our own.

To foster the virtue of humility, the Redemptorist Rule charged its members to keep silence if blamed for something they had not done. Gerard was taking this precept to an extreme for which it was never intended, but he genuinely believed that by not defending himself against this gross charge and permitting people to think the worst of him, he was rooting out pride.

Gerard's second reason was his desire to imitate Christ. {ln:Jesus} had stood silent before Pontius Pilate and not answered the false accusations made against him. Gerard would do the same.

Apparently many people found it hard to believe that Gerard would have an affair with anyone. Some of his brother Redemptorists, convinced of his innocence, urged Gerard to go to Alphonsus and ask permission to receive Communion once again. Gerard answered, ÒWe must die under the winepress of God's Will.

And so the months went by without Gerard ever breaking his silence. Then Alphonsus received another letter from Neria. She was gravely ill and believed she was about to die. Afraid to go before God with calumny on her conscience, Neria admitted that everything she had said about Gerard was a lie. We can only imagine Alphonsus' relief and joy as he read this letter.

He summoned Gerard and told him that his reputation had been cleared. Then Alphonsus asked why he had not defended himself against NeriaÕs false accusations. Gerard said, ÒHow could I, Father? The Rule says I may never make excuses but must bear in silence whatever penances the superior imposes.

In October 1755, Gerard's health, which had always been precarious, finally failed him. He suffered a mortal attack of tuberculosis accompanied by violent hemorrhages. On the night of October 15-16, Gerard Majella died.

{tab=About Book}

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