St. Gianna Novena

Day 4: Blessed are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Justice

Reflection

In supreme contrast to the power-hungry mentality of our times, St. Gianna hungered for that which endures, the Bread of Life. She grew daily in her relationship with Our Lord by attending daily Mass, praying the Rosary daily, and volunteering to serve the elderly and needy. For her, justice depended on prayer and she related, “Why do you not succeed in doing good? It’s because you do not pray enough.”

“‘Blessed are those who thirst and hunger for justice, for they shall be satisfied.’ If we hunger for the things of this world we will end in starvation. We ought to hunger for justice, the Bread of Life who is Christ. He tells us in John 6:41, ‘I am the bread that has come down from heaven.’ We ought to thirst for the living water of which our Lord said ‘whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.’”

- “St. Augustine On the Beatitudes,” by Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg

Intention

Let us ask St. Gianna to help bolster our resolve
to practice the Beatitudes in our daily lives.

Novena Prayer to St. Gianna

(Composed by His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke)

Saint Gianna, heroically Christlike wife, mother and physician, I ask the help of your prayers, as I strive to follow your holy example in my physical and spiritual trials.

Help me, by your prayers, to recognize the suffering of the Cross as the way to pure and selfless love of God and my neighbor. May your practice of medicine with priestly care of both body and soul inspire physicians to see the Face of the suffering Christ in their patients.

May your loving acceptance of illness and death help patients to know and do God's will in all things, uniting their sufferings to the Passion and Death of Christ for the salvation of the world.

Saint Gianna, pray for us always that we may have a heart, meek and courageous, like the Heart of Jesus, in Whom we find our healing and strength.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord. AMEN

St. Gianna Beretta Molla,
Pray for us!

Day 5

Day 3

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