Saving Lives

Details: 06 May 2011

After four years of careful planning, Bishop Bruskewitz consecrated the altar and Chapel of St. Gianna and blessed our second and largest location of St. Gianna Women’s Homes.

Run and staffed by the Marian Sisters, this new home will be a safe haven for women and their children escaping domestic violence and abortion under the protection and patronage of St. Gianna, wife, mother and physician. Providentially this consecration and blessing was done by Bishop Bruskewitz on April 28, the feast day of St. Gianna.

For those who may not know her story, St. Gianna was a wife, mother and physician who developed a tumor on her uterus during her fourth pregnancy. She was given a choice by her doctors - her life or the life of her unborn baby.

Instead of choosing a hysterectomy (which would have ended the life of her baby) she chose a riskier procedure which ultimately led to her death one week to the day after giving birth to a beautiful little girl named Gianna Emanuela. As a physician herself, she knew of the risks involved in the choice she made. She died so another may live. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13).

We are very grateful to St. Gianna, whose intercession was very powerful, for in the planning and construction of this project she opened many doors for us. Why would someone not be interested in saving lives in eternity when saving lives was something they were interested in while living in the realm of time? We are confident she will continue to intercede for us in the running of this beautiful center going forward.

The opening of St. Gianna’s is coming at the right moment for our first resident, who just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. His mother recently escaped an abuser who wanted to kill her and their unborn baby.

Through the grace and providence of God she has found us here in the Diocese of Lincoln. If it was not for St. Gianna’s, I do not know where she would go. While she is at St. Gianna’s we will use our existing programs to transition her and her children to a safe and permanent place in the community. Meanwhile, she and her children will have a safe, furnished home. As a Catholic, she is excited that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is present in the chapel and for the opportunity of hearing Mass as well.

I am elated to announce that Gianna Emanuela, the little baby that St. Gianna died for, will be coming to Lincoln Thursday, July 21 to visit St. Gianna’s. I have been in contact with her and her brother Pierluigi (who I have had the privilege to meet and who hopefully will visit at a later date). After arriving in Lincoln and a visit to St. Gianna’s, those interested will be able to see and hear her talk about her mother. The exact time and place of this is to be determined.

Please keep St. Gianna’s in your prayers - a safe place of refuge for women and their children all across the diocese.

I would like to thank Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. Gianna and all the angels and saints for their intercession as well as Bishop Bruskewitz, the clergy, religious, especially the Marian Sisters and laity of the diocese of Lincoln for their support. St. Gianna, pray for us!