Melanie Rigney

“Charity enters heaven when humility opens the door.” —St. María Natividad Venegas de la Torre

Gianna Molla was a physician who loved her husband and children. When Gianna became pregnant again, she and Pietro agreed that she would stay home with the children after the baby’s birth. But at two months, Gianna was found to have a non-cancerous uterine tumor. The experts gave her three options: complete hysterectomy to remove the growth, which would also result in the baby’s death; removing the growth and terminating the pregnancy; or simply removing the tumor and continuing the pregnancy, knowing that complications could occur in the next seven months.

 “The important thing is to do charity, not to talk about charity. We must understand the work with very poor people as a God’s chosen mission.” — Saint Irma Dulce Lopes Pontes

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Jesus told the disciples (Luke 12:49).

How in the world could a group of women, ranging in age from nine to ninety-three at their deaths, women formally canonized by the Catholic Church for heroic virtues and associated miracles, be considered radical? Because being a Christian is radical. The word radical comes from the Latin radicalis, meaning “of or relating to a root.” When Christ and his teachings are our foundation, we are on a radical path, a path people have struggled to walk for more than two thousand years.