PIETRO AND GIANNA ARE MARRIED
On September 24, 1955 at the age of 33 years
old, Gianna’s
brother Father Giuseppe married Gianna Beretta to Pietro Molla
in the Basilica of San Martino in Magenta. The altar was adorned
with
pink and white carnations and the long carpet extending the
length of the church was lined with flowers and greenery. Gianna
was
dressed in a white satin gown with a tulle veil pinned at the
nape of her
neck**. As Gianna began to walk down the aisle on the arm of
her brother Ferdinando, everyone in the church was struck by
her beauty
and expressed their admiration with an applause that broke
out through the quiet of the church. Gianna walking down the
aisle
tuned with
her big wide-open eyes surprised at the response from her friends
and family.
Gianna and Pietro knelt together and promised to remain
united to each other forever with the words of the vows of the Sacrament
of
Matrimony. They would soon show that the oath of love they made on
that day would be stronger than any adversary, stronger even than
death.
Pietro later wrote Gianna
“The memory returns of that sudden
outburst of applause that
began upon your entrance to the church that lasted until you
reached the altar. Your brother, Giuseppe, who Saint our
union, exhorted us to give witness to the Gospel and to holiness.”
The happy couple took an extended honeymoon to Rome and all over Italy and Europe.
Pietro wrote in a letter a few weeks after the wedding:
“Her holy virtue, the gentle goodness and
affection of Gianna, all
her cares, give me the full joy and serenity which I asked of Jesus
on my wedding day. With Gianna I am sure of forming a truly
Christian family on which she will know how to draw the most
beautiful heavenly graces…We have begun and will continue with
perseverance the daily recitation of the Rosary. May our heavenly
mother always watch over us and give us the grace to be cheered
by little angels.” (by which he meant the happy and healthy children
her and Gianna hoped to have)
Following the honeymoon, Gianna & Pietro settled down in a little
house near the large firm where Pietro worked. Gianna was a serene and joyful
women and
her joy had ways of irradiating itself and seemed to spread to those near her.
She worked harder than ever as a doctor and as a woman in Catholic Action. She
never forgot the Beretta family… regularly
writing letters to her faraway brothers and sisters and entertaining those
who lived nearby.
** The Society of St Gianna obtained a piece of this dress from Mr Molla and
pieces of this dress are sown into the chasuble owned by the Society and often
worn by priests at presentations. |