St. Gabriel
St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was born in Assisi on 1 March 1838, and baptised that same night in the Cathedral of San Rufino, in the same font as St. Francis of Assisi, whose name he was given. He soon discovered the harshness of life because at the age of four his mother died. In the meantime, his father, the Governor of the Papal state, had moved with his whole family to the prestigious town of Spoleto, in the province of Perugia, where Gabriel spent his infancy and teens up to the age of eighteen. He grew up strong willed and lively, running around the large rooms of the palace with his brothers and sisters. He learned how to pray, but also gave his father a few headaches as he struggled to control Gabriel’s exuberance. He was sensitive to others, especially the poor, and he used to go to theatres and salons dressed in the latest fashion.
He was nicknamed “The Dancer” or “The Dandy”. However, he never lowered himself to any moral compromises. Under the fashionable clothes he sometimes wore a hair shirt. He was handsome and attractive, and the girls of Spoleto liked him. However, things were changing. Sister Death was shattering his large family with frequent funerals, including that of his much loved sister, Luisa. An old idea began to churn consistently in his head; to consecrate himself totally to God and the religious life. It was a promise first made when at the age of twelve he had a serious throat illness which threatened to kill him by suffocation.
On 22 August 1856 during the procession of the icon of the Mother of Sorrows through the streets of Spoleto, Gabriel, who was on his knees in the crowd, sensed the image come to life, and a voice clearly reverberated in his heart: “do you still not
understand that this life is not for you? Follow your vocation”. This put an end to his hesitation.
Two weeks later he was already a novice of the Passionists at Morrovale in the province of Macerata. He was eighteen and a half years old. His choice of the religious life was radical and irrevocable. He quickly took the road to holiness, but without any sensational signs, just a simple life distinguished by the heroics of daily life and utter devotion to the Madonna of Sorrows.
He spent the last two and a half years in the Passionate monastery at the foot of the Gran Sasso mountain. He came down with Tuberculosis, but maintained his normal forms of corporal mortification and begged to be carried to Mass. He kept his usual good spirits, so much so, that the other novices were keen to spend time at his bedside. In fact, he came to be remembered as the Saint of Joy.
Before he could be ordained as a priest, Gabriel died on the morning of 27 February 1862 at the age of twenty four.
His fame began in 1892, thirty years after his death, when the first miracles were noted among the crowds gathered for the formal identification of his remains. On 31 May 1908 he was declared Blessed.
Pope Benedict XV canonised Gabriel in 1920 and declared him the patron saint of young Catholics. In 1959, Pope John XXIII nominated him patron saint of the Abruzzo region of Italy. The Catholic Church invokes his protection for students, seminarians and novices.
The many emigrants devoted to St. Gabriel, who left Italy for a better life, have carried his name and devotion far and wide.