Diary/autobiography of St. Gemma Galgani?

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dove51

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I remember once reading somewhere that I could obtain the diary/autobiography of Gemma by writing to some Passionists somewhere, but I forget where. I would really like to find a copy. Does anyone know how I might find one?
 
I have two booklets which are probably what you need:
  • “The Cross in My Heart — The Life of Saint Gemma Galgani, Lay Passionist” (44 pages) and
  • “The Autobiography of Saint Gemma Galgani” (about 70 pages)
Both are published by:

Passionist Nuns Monastery
1151 Donaldson Highway
Erlanger, Kentucky 41018-1000
(859) 371-8568
 
There are three books which are published by a Passionist Publication called “Crossplace” that is located in Union City, NJ
  1. Holy Hour of St. Gemma
  2. The Cross in my Heart
  3. The voices of Gemma Galgani
You can find these books on pages 2 and 3 of the link I am pasting below.

crossplace.com/store/page18-ss2.html

Peace
 
dove51 said:
Thank you so much! Gosh, now I’ve got a new dilemma. The book written by Fr. Germanus is so much different than her autobiography. I wonder which to believe.
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Hello,

Why do you say this? I wonder what differences between the two lead you to think that one is less true than the next? If you could cite specific examples, that would be nice.
 
Epistemes said:
Hello,

Why do you say this? I wonder what differences between the two lead you to think that one is less true than the next? If you could cite specific examples, that would be nice.
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In her autobiography, Gemma apparently says she was a bad student and almost got expelled. But Fr. Germanus says she was such a good student she won prizes in school.

The other one I noticed was the instance of her cousin touching her face. In her autobiography, Gemma says he was cruel to her and meant to pinch her on the face, but she pushed him hard. In the biography by her spiritual director, he makes it seem much more different: he says her cousin was grateful to her for retrieving some item, made a move to touch her tenderly on the cheek, but was repelled by some supernatural force and fell down.

It bugs me that there are discrepancies. 😦
 
dove51 said:
In her autobiography, Gemma apparently says she was a bad student and almost got expelled. But Fr. Germanus says she was such a good student she won prizes in school.

The other one I noticed was the instance of her cousin touching her face. In her autobiography, Gemma says he was cruel to her and meant to pinch her on the face, but she pushed him hard. In the biography by her spiritual director, he makes it seem much more different: he says her cousin was grateful to her for retrieving some item, made a move to touch her tenderly on the cheek, but was repelled by some supernatural force and fell down.

It bugs me that there are discrepancies. 😦
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Good eye. 🙂

I wouldn’t call them “discrepancies” – not so much as “embellishments.” 😉

Seriously, though, it certainly would not have been typical of a man/priest of that day (Fr. Germano) to have written of the lighter side of Gemma. Remember, too, when you read Teresa of Avila, you read her own words. When you read the life of Gemma, you read the words of her director, who would include only that which he thought would present her in the best light and his thought processes were formed by the education and culture of his time, therefore he was not intentionally writing with any bias.

We have so few of Gemma’s actual writings (especially in English) that we must rely on Fr. Germanus’s biography as the best possible portrait of her. Plus, Gemma isn’t a saint because she knocked her cousin off a horse or not, or because she nearly failed school or not, but due to her virtue – and I doubt Fr. Germanus needed to embellish anything in that regard. 👍
 
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