On Holy Saturday I was awakened by a phone call at 6:00 AM from a friend in Italy informing me that Pietro Molla had passed away in the early hours of the morning. He was 97. The funeral was set for Tuesday April 6. We are both personal friends of the Molla family and he had been notified by St. Gianna’s last living sister, Mother Virginia. I made the decision to attend the funeral and booked a flight for the next morning, Easter Sunday.

His death, in light of the Catholic Faith, was very blessed. Pietro’s health had been failing for the past few years due to his advanced age. His loving and dedicated daughter, Gianna Emanuela, left her job as a geriatric physician in a hospital to care for him for the past seven years. On Good Friday Pietro took a turn for the worse and he entered his agony. His family was called to the bedside. St. Gianna had also entered her final agony on Good Friday in 1962 when she went to hospital to give birth to Gianna Emanuela, a birth complicated by septic peritonitis from which she died.

An interesting fact that touched me very much was that during the week leading up to her death, St. Gianna suffered immensely from her illness and the thought of leaving her husband and four children behind. Her sister, Mother Virginia was at her bedside throughout the trial and later said:  “She obtained strength in the face of suffering from her short prayers of love and offering: ‘Jesus, I love you’, ‘Jesus, I adore you’, ‘Jesus, help me’, ‘Mom, help me,’ ‘Mary help me’ followed by silent meditations.”  Speaking of a cross that belonged to Mother Virginia, Gianna told her sister, “I received a lot of consolation kissing your holy cross.  We must thank God who can comfort us in difficult moments!”

I was deeply moved when I learned that Pietro requested the crucifix that had provided such consolation to his wife during her agony, be brought to him in his agony. The family placed the cross on his chest as he slowly began to fade. He died embracing the cross just as his wife had died forty eight years earlier.

The wake

I arrived on Monday morning and went to the family’s house in Pietro’s home town of Mesero. The living room had been cleared and Pietro’s body was exposed in a coffin surrounded as is the custom by a standing crucifix and candles. Pietro’s face was serene and dignified as it had been throughout his life. The scene was so calm and later I commented to others that the room had taken on the ambiance of a chapel. Gianna Emanuela was there and she greeted me with a big hug. As we spoke she told me about her father’s final days had been and how peacefully he died. I spent much of the day at their home praying before Pietro’s body and visiting with the family. Throughout the day friends, family and others devoted to St. Gianna and the family came to pay their respects and pray for the repose of the soul of this venerable man.

The Funeral

The next day more people continued to arrive at the house to pay their respects. I met many people who in some way knew the family or had been inspired by Pietro’s saintly wife. Two priests arrived from Poland. They had driven through the night to be able to attend the funeral. The son of St. Gianna, Pierluigi, his wife and their daughter as well as Pierluigi’s sister Laura and her husband were there. Fr. Giuseppe and Mother Virginia, St. Gianna’s two living siblings were present, and I had the opportunity to visit with them. Many other relatives came and by 2:00 in the afternoon, when the funeral procession was scheduled to begin, the house was overflowing into the street with several hundred people, many of them priests and religious.

As we prayed the rosary, the coffin was closed and sealed for the last time. Gianna Emanuela told me that Pietro’s suit was the same that he had worn for the canonization of his wife, and the white tie was the same tie he had worn on his wedding day. In his upper suit pocket could be seen a white handkerchief that belonged to St. Gianna. It all added to the holy and historic moment I was witnessing.

After the rosary, when the preparations of the coffin had been completed, everyone filed out of the house onto the street with about 30 priests leading the procession. The coffin was placed in the hearse. The Molla family and friends followed behind as we proceeded on foot through Mesero to the church just a few minutes away. An auxiliary bishop from the diocese of Milan, representing Cardinal Tetamanzi, presided over the funeral Mass. Another bishop from Milan was also in attendance.

Following the funeral Mass, we processed from the church to the nearby cemetery while reciting the chaplet of Divine Mercy and other prayers. The coffin with Pietro’s remains was placed in a vault beside his beloved St. Gianna. The parish priest blessed the vault and then the masons sealed up the tomb with brick and mortar as the family and friends looked on. A final word and blessing were added by the parish priest as the ceremony came to an end.

While the crowd dispersed I said goodbye to St. Gianna’s brother and sister, both acquaintances for many years. I thought to myself what a blessing it is to know these people with whom St. Gianna had lived and died. I gave Mother Virginia a St. Gianna Physician’s Guild pin. She quickly put it on before we took some pictures as a memento of this special occasion.

After everything was wrapped up I was invited to the family’s home for the afternoon and for dinner. We walked back to the house talking about the events of the day and there was a feeling that a page in history had been turned in everybody’s life.

At the house we had an opportunity to visit and catch up on news. I brought the family up to date on the activities of the Guild. It was also an opportunity for me to learn more about the fascinating and holy life of their dear mother and father. As the evening passed I helped them put the house back in order and learned that a lot of the furniture, including the couch we had just placed back in the living room, was from Gianna and Pietro’s home in Ponte Nuovo where she died.

I was surprised to learn that many of the beautiful paintings decorating the wall were actually painted by St. Gianna. And that the piano in the parlor was the one she used to enjoy playing. It was a moving experience I will never forget. The family is very supportive and enthusiastic about the work of the St. Gianna Physician’s Guild and I was honored to receive from them a relic which will be venerated at our programs in the United States. They entrusted the Guild with their mother’s stethoscope which she had used through all the years of her medical practice caring for the infants and mothers entrusted to her care.

St. Gianna used to say: “We physicians have opportunities that a priest does not have, for our mission does not end when medicine is no longer of help.  There still remains the soul that must be brought to God. …Jesus says, ‘Whoever visits the sick is helping me.’  This is a priestly mission!  Just as the priest can touch Jesus, so we doctors touch Jesus in the bodies of our patients: in the poor, the young, the old, and children.” It was such an honor to receive an instrument that St. Gianna used as an integral part of her mission in life. I pray that it will help to inspire physicians and other health care professionals in the United States to follow in her footsteps.