Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows (born Francesco Possenti, in Assisi, March 1st, 1838 - Gran Sasso, February 27, 1862) was a Passionist student who entered the religious life after turning from a life devoted to excess.

The eleventh of thirteen children born to his mother Agnes and his father Sante, a legal assessor in the town of Spoleto, then part of the Papal States under Pius IX, Francesco was baptised on the day of his birth, in the same font in which St. Francis of Assisi had been baptised, and his life would mirror that of Francis — turning from the excesses of this world to the glory of the next.

Francis led the normal life of a young boy, becoming popular for his warm and outgoing personality, his love of dancing, hunting and the theater. He endangered himself more than once on his hunting expeditions and during a childhood illness had promised to become a religious if he were healed. Twice he was healed, twice he delayed. Francis did well in school, despite a childhood which included the death of three siblings and his own mother. Like a normal boy of his age Francis attracted the attention of the girls of Spoleto, where the family had moved from Assisi.

During a procession of an icon of the Mother of Sorrows, Francis felt Our Lady call to him that he was not meant for this world and he was to become a religious. On the night his father had arranged for him to become engaged, Francis left for the Passionist novitiate.

Francis took vows in the Passionist community, taking the name of Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, reflecting the devotion, planted in his childhood home by his mother's image of the Pietà, that he always had to Our Lady of Sorrows. In the novitiate he cultivated a great love for Christ Crucified and Our Lady of Sorrows. Gabriel attained holiness in a very short space of time, he was consumed with love for Christ, through Our Lady of Sorrows. Indeed as well as the vow made by all Passionists to spread devotion to Christ Crucified, Gabriel took an additional vow to spread devotion to Our Sorrowful Mother. His writings reflect his close relationship with God and His Mother.

He was soon struck with tuberculosis, but maintained all his habitual mortifcations, begged to be carried to Mass, and maintained his cheerful disposition, and, before he could be ordained a priest, died of the disease in the Passionist monastery at Gran Sasso in the presence of the community, hugging close an image of Our Lady of Sorrows, indeed as he died a smile spread across his face and he tilted his head to the right, where he saw the Virgin Mary coming to take him to heaven.

Pope Benedict XV canonized Gabriel in 1920 and declared him a patron of Catholic youth. In 1959, Pope John XXIII named him the patron of the Abruzzi region, where he spent the last two years of his earthly life.

From St. Gabriel, Passionist with permission

External link

Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Passionist - web site spreading devotion to this Saint