Love story

On Sunday, May 16, EWTN – Eternal Word Television Network – presented a half-hour documentary on the life of Gianna Beretta Molla. It was the preliminary programming for her canonization, in Saint Peter’s Square, in the Vatican. It was the most beautiful love story that I have ever read, or heard on radio, or watched on television, in my long and checkered career. And I am 88 years old.

Gianna was never glamorous, as a child, as a growing girl, as a young woman studying medicine, she was just a naturally pretty girl. The kind of girl we see in our streets everyday. The naturally beautiful young girl. She would never have won a beauty contest as Miss Milan, or Miss Italy, or Miss Europe. She was just a good, good girl that any mother would want to have as a bride for her son.

And her husband was not handsome. In the sense that he could compete with any of the great movie stars of his day – Rudolf Valentino, in the silent movies; Clark Gable, with his moustache and his dimples and his smirk; Gregory Peck, with his rugged looks and idealism; Robert Redford and Tom Cruise and the other pretty boys of our day. He could not compete with them in looks. But in pure, passionate love he left them all standing at the post. He made them look like schoolboys, reciting lines in an elocution contest, while he was a real man, in the real world, who knew what life meant, and who knew the value of love.

All the words of Gianna in her youth are beautiful. She said: "At fourteen, a girl should be preparing for life. She should be preparing to be a good wife, and a good mother. She should be preparing for the hardships, and the sufferings, which come with life." She said, at fourteen, "I would rather die than to commit a mortal sin."

She fell in love, and married. But both she and her husband presented marriage exactly as God meant it to be: affectionate, intimate, personal, pure, sacred. Their letters to each other were extremely simple, but so romantic! Gianna was a magnificent example of passionate, feminine love, touched by the grace of God. She loved her husband, and was happy with him. They were blessed with three children in their first six years of marriage.

When she was 39 years old, a doctor, she was pregnant with her fourth baby. It was a difficult pregnancy. The doctors found a tumor in her womb. They wanted to remove the tumor, and terminate the pregnancy. That is the soft language of the doctor for "kill the baby". Gianna, who was herself a doctor, said: "No way!" So she went to bed, carried the baby to full term. The child was born, a beautiful little girl, but the mother, Gianna, died.

When her husband was telling this story, 42 years after his wife died, he broke down in tears. He said: "She was looking at her baby, just before she died. She was saying ‘Goodbye’ to her, with her eyes". He loved her with all his heart, half a century after she went home to God. Her husband was at her canonization, and the daughter for whom she died, and her three other children. The boy, Pier Luigi, was one of the priests who concelebrated with John Paul II at the altar in Saint Peter’s Square.

This couple, Gianna and her Italian husband, presented marriage to us exactly as God wanted it to be; affectionate, romantic, intimate, personal, passionate, sacred. Her picture was unveiled in Vatican Square, holding her baby up close. She is a wife, and a mother, who was a saint. She and her husband, pure and chaste all the way, blessed with the peace, the joy, the happiness of Christ Our Lord. He said: "I have come that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete!"

This is the kind of love story that our media should present. Not just physical attraction, not just lust, but real love–which is a grace given by God.

Upon reflection, I realize that the Church, and the media, have always been afraid to present love as sacred. We have presented great saints in media: Monsieur Vincent: this is the best motion picture that I have ever seen, the life of Saint Vincent de Paul. The young priest breaking down the door of the house boarded up because the townspeople thought the woman had the plague. Vincent coming out with the child in his arms. Her mother was dead, and the child near starvation. When he was put in charge of the King’s Navy, going down to take the place of the slave in the galleon who fainted from the pain of the lash and the pulling of the oar. His last words to the little nun giving out the bread and soup to the poor: "Sister, when you give out the bread, smile! Because it is only your love that will enable the poor to forgive you for the crust of bread you give them."

Song of Bernadette: the story of a poor peasant girl who saw the Virgin Mary, and brought all the world to her, at Lourdes.

Man For All Seasons: The heroism of Thomas More, the Prime Minister of England, who stood up against King Henry VIII, and died for the sacredness of the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The Passion of the Christ: the terrible suffering of Christ in the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion. And the loyalty of Mary his mother, John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene.

The Mission: the story of the Jesuit Reductions in Paraguay, where the Church defended the poor natives of the land against the cruel, greedy invasion of the West.

The Lilies of the Field: where a negro Baptist helps a congregation of nuns to build a church, and helps a Catholic priest to find his real mission in life.

Going My Way: the story of a priest coming to a poor parish, and his work with the children, and with the poor parishioners.

Sound of Music: a postulant in a convent finds her true vocation in marriage, helping the children of a ship captain whose wife is dead, working for the freedom of her country.

But all of these films are stories of heroism, not of human, affectionate, passionate love. The Church, and the media, have left the love stories to secular writers, most of whom do not know what love means.

The story of Gianna Beretta Molla is a real love story. A girl, falling in love, marrying, having three children, whom she loved with all her heart, in the first six years of her marriage.

The story of a mother, pregnant with her fourth baby. The doctors advising an operation, the termination of the pregnancy. Her feminine, motherly, Catholic decision: "No way!"

Her pain, for the long months before delivery. Her love for her baby. Her letter to her husband: "During my sickness, I have been there! I have been there! We will be so happy there! We have been so happy here! God wanted to send me back to suffer a little, in preparation."

The fierce love of her four children for their mother. The love of her husband, leading him to break down in tears for her, 42 years after her death.

Her baby, for whom she died, present at her canonization. Her husband, in a wheel chair, present at her canonization. Her son, a priest, concelebrating Mass with the Holy Father, John Paul II, at her canonization. Her four children, and all those who loved her, and whom she loved, present in Saint Peter’s Square when she was canonized.

This is a love story.

Our media men and women should abandon lust, and bore into the souls of men, to tell the deep, true, spiritual stories of what love really is – like the story of Gianna.