Last week, I mentioned that I will be in Italy, with my wife, visiting family and friends. The trip will also include a visit with the children of Saint Gianna Molla, who are close friends of ours. I have known them for almost twenty years. It has been a special grace because they represent the first time in the history of the Church that a person is canonized and the children are living. Their mother is a saint in heaven.

While there, I will go with the family to pray at the tomb of their mother. It is a unique experience to be before the tomb praying to Saint Gianna and the children are praying to “Saint Mom.”

Knowing that Saint Gianna is such a powerful intercessor, if you haven’t had a chance to submit your intentions, please do so now. I will pray for them, at Saint Gianna’s tomb, together with her family.

You can begin today by invoking St. Gianna. Recite this beautiful prayer, lovingly composed by our Shepherd, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.

Saint Gianna, heroically Christlike wife, mother and physician, I ask the help of your prayers, as I strive to follow your holy example in my physical and spiritual trials.

Help me, by your prayers, to recognize the suffering of the Cross as the way to pure and selfless love of God and my neighbor. May your practice of medicine with priestly care of both body and soul inspire physicians to see the Face of the suffering Christ in their patients.

May your loving acceptance of illness and death help patients to know and do God's will in all things, uniting their sufferings to the Passion and Death of Christ for the salvation of the world.

Saint Gianna, pray for us always that we may have a heart, meek and courageous, like the Heart of Jesus, in Whom we find our healing and strength.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord. AMEN.

I look forward to sharing more about this profound pilgrimage upon my return.

Yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,