Moses spoke to the people, saying: “This day the LORD, your God, commands you to observe these statutes and decrees. Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice. And today the LORD is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments, he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made, and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God, as he promised.”
REFLECTION: “Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice.”
Today’s saint heard the interior call from God, but had his own personal challenges to overcome in order to follow his vocation. Francesco Possenti was born March 1, 1838, the eleventh of thirteen children, to Agnes and Sante Posenti in Assisi. By the time he was four years old, he lost two sisters and his mother. He seemed to be a pious youth and very likable with his peers. When he was 13 years old, he became very sick and promised to enter religious life if he recovered. He did not follow through with this good intention and spent his teenage years in society, dating several young ladies. Two years later he fell seriously ill with a throat abscess and attributes his recovery to Blessed Andrew Bobola, S.J. After his recovery and the death of two of his brothers, he applied to join the Jesuits, but for an unknown reason he did not join.
Soon after this failed attempt to enter into a religious life, a cholera epidemic took his dear sister’s life. Mary Louisa had taken the place of his mother after she passed. As a result of the epidemic, the local clerics initiated a procession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There he heard a voice ask him why he was still in this world? He then applied to join the Passionists, where he met opposition from his father. Eventually his father realized Francesco was serious about his vocation and so he gave his blessing. Francesco joined the Passionists at eighteen years of age and was given the name “Gabriel of our Lady of Sorrows”.
A year later he pronounced his vow and quickly grew in sanctity with a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the next four years, he excelled academically and spiritually. At the news of being diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was joyful to die a slow death, so he could prepare spiritually. At the age of 23 he lay dying surrounded by his community. They witnessed the moment of death in which he sat up radiantly holding his hand out to receive, it is believed to be, the Virgin Mary. He is a patronage for clerics, youth, students and those studying for the priesthood.
Let us ask St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows to pray for us. May we be inspired to listen and accept God’s vocation for us and know we are created to be “sacred to the Lord, our God”.
