19th century
Feast: April 11
Stigmata appeared on her hands every Thursday and vanished by Sunday — her family's housekeeper thought she was faking it, and the local pharmacist just thought she was sick.
Gemma Galgani's life was a catalog of loss. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Gemma was seven. Her father died when she was eighteen, leaving the family destitute. She contracted spinal meningitis and was temporarily paralyzed. She was refused entry to the Passionist convent because of her health. And then, in 1899, she began experiencing the stigmata — wounds appearing on her hands, feet, and side every Thursday evening and disappearing by Sunday. Blood soaked through her bandages. Her confessor, a Passionist priest, was cautious and methodical — he documented everything. The family she was living with (the Giannini household) witnessed the phenomena but responded with a mix of awe and domestic irritation; the housekeeper was particularly skeptical. Gemma also reported visions, ecstasies, and conversations with her guardian angel — all of which she described in plain, unpolished Italian that lacks any trace of self-dramatization. She wanted to suffer for sinners, and she got her wish: tuberculosis of the spine killed her at twenty-five. Her diary and letters, published after her death, reveal someone intense, honest, and surprisingly funny in her matter-of-fact descriptions of extraordinary things.