The Voices of Gemma Galgani: The Life and Afterlife of a Modern Saint - Hardcover

Bell, Rudolph M.; Mazzoni, Cristina

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9780226041964: The Voices of Gemma Galgani: The Life and Afterlife of a Modern Saint

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226041964 ISBN 13: 9780226041964

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2003

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My sister Angelina knows all about my things. This morning she was talking about my things like they were no big deal; and my brother was making fun of them together with her. I'm not afraid of their jokes, you know? . . . My sister even brought her classmates to the house, and she tells them this, just to make fun of me: "Come, let's go see Gemma go in ecstasy."

Gemma Galgani was the first person who lived in the twentieth century to become a saint. Born in Lucca to a pharmacist and his wife, Gemma died of tuberculosis at the young age of twenty-five after a life of intense personal spirituality. Jesus caressed her as lovers do; the Virgin Mary was her affectionate Mom; Brother Gabriel playfully teased her about whether she preferred his visits to those of Jesus; and she even received all of Christ's wounds in her hands, feet, and side. At the same time, she was mocked by her family and labeled a hysteric by doctors and the local bishop. Her trials and the intimate details of her supernatural encounters—the voices of Gemma Galgani—are revealed here in this marvelous book by Rudolph M. Bell and Cristina Mazzoni.

Bell and Mazzoni have chosen and translated the most important of Gemma's words: her autobiographical account of her childhood, her diary, and key selections from her "ecstasies" and letters. Gemma emerges as a very modern saint indeed: confident, grandiose, manipulative, childish, admired, and with this book, no longer forgotten. Following Gemma's own voice, Bell carefully contextualizes her life and passion and explores her afterlife, specifically the complicated process of her canonization. Mazzoni closes the book with a "Saint's Alphabet" that finds, through Gemma's voice, spiritual meaning for women in the twenty-first century.

Far more than the reinvigoration of a neglected historical figure, The Voices of Gemma Galgani is a portrait of a complex girl-woman caught between the medieval and the modern and a potent reminder of spirituality in a supposedly secular age.

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From the Inside Flap:

In the years after the First World War, Gemma Galgani became known throughout Brooklyn, Spain, Latin America, and event the Far East as the Lily of Lucca, a saint-in-th-making who from her heavenly station protected orphan girls, inspired missionaries, and healed the sick. She herself had died on Easter Sunday in 1903, at the age of twenty-five. Her last four years in this world had been troubling but richly satisfying, filled with extraordinary moments of intense personal spirituality. Jesus caressed her as lovers do; the Virgin Mary was her affectionate Mom; Brother Gabriel playfully teased her about whether she preferred his visits to those of Jesus; and she even received all of Christ's wounds in her hands, feet, and side. At the same time, she was mocked by her family—her aunt once complained about having to mop up the blood stains from Gemma's stigmata—and labeled a hysteric by doctors and the local clergy. Was Gemma Galgani merely an imaginative and troubled girl, or was she a true religious mystic? In The Voices of Gemma Galgani, Rudolph Bell and Cristina Mazzonu let readers decide for themselves as they bring Gemma's writing into English for the first time.

Bell and Mazzoni have chosen and translated the most important of Gemma's words: the autobiographical account of her childhood, her diary, and key selections from her "ecstasies" and letters. Gemma emerges as a very modern saint indeed: confident, grandiose, manipulative, childish, admired, and with this book no longer forgotten. Framing her words is Bell and Mazzoni's own research into Gemma's life and times: their essays cover Italian religious culture at the turn of the century, what can be recovered of Gemma's controversial canonization proceedings, and what Gemma can teach modern women about spiritual meaning in the twenty-first century.

Far more than the reinvigoration of a neglected historical figure, The Voices of Gemma Galgani is an extraordinary record of the collision between the secular and the mystical, the teenage girl and the eternal saint.

About the Author:

Rudolph M. Bell is a professor of history at Rutgers University. He is the author or coauthor of five books, four of them published by the University of Chicago Press, including Holy Anorexia and How to Do It.

Cristina Mazzoni is an associate professor of Romance Languages at the University of Vermont and the author or editor of three books, including Saint Hysteria.

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