THIRD SCENE
The Portrait
Not having any photographs of St Gabriel, Fr. Norberto gives an artist a physical description, so that he can paint a good likeness of the saint.
Padre Norberto
I, Norberto, sent Gabriel’s father, Sante Possenti a lot of information about his son’s five years of religious life. His friends didn’t forget Gabriel: his school friend, Paolo Bonaccia, who became a priest, wrote a first biography in 1868 and also Padre Bernardo Silvestrelli, his friend in the novitiate, wrote his memories in 1879 …
As there were no photographs in our possession of Gabriel, both Padre Norberto and I gave an artist a physical description of Gabriel so that he could paint a good likeness of him.
FOURTH SCENE
Maria and the old women
The peasant woman, Maria, surrounded by some old women, tells a friend how, thirty years after his death, St. Gabriel’s body was exhumed so that it could be transported from the monastery of Isola del Gran Sasso to the Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Star, and of the seven miraculous healings that happened that same day.
Maria
With the unification of Italy and the law of 7th July 1866, the suppression of the monasteries was decreed. Even the priests of Isola del Gran Sasso had to abandon their monastery where St. Gabriel was buried, and it quickly fell into ruin. When Gabriel became a candidate for beatification, one of the first things to do was to exhume his body. It was decided to do this secretly and take the remains somewhere else, but hearing of this, and to stop it happening, there was a popular revolt