Novena to St Gianna Beretta Molla

The novena to St Gianna Beretta Molla is a nine-day prayer to the Italian wife, physician, and mother who, in 1962, chose the life of her unborn child over her own — and who is honored today as a patron of mothers, expectant mothers, physicians, and the unborn. It is prayed above all by couples longing for a child, by mothers in difficult pregnancies, by doctors and nurses, and by anyone who wishes to place a hard decision under the protection of a saint who lived one to the end.

Her feast falls on 28 April, so the nine days from 19 to 27 April are the natural time to make it; but the novena may be prayed at any need, on any nine days. Below we give the full daily prayers, the nine distinct intentions, and the true story of her life.

A note on this devotion

St Gianna died in 1962 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II only in 2004, so this is a devotion of our own age, not an ancient one, and she does not appear in the 1962 calendar. We give the novena in full because it is widely sought, entirely orthodox, and answers a real and urgent need — the defense of the unborn and the sanctification of marriage and medicine. Those attached to the older calendar will find in her the same holiness the Church has always canonized: a soul that preferred God's will to its own life. For the shape and meaning of this kind of prayer, see our guide to what is a novena.

The daily novena prayer to St Gianna

This prayer is said on each of the nine days, before the intention proper to that day. It is the prayer approved for seeking graces through her intercession:

God, our Father, You have granted to Your Church the gift of Gianna Beretta Molla. In her youth she lovingly sought You and drew other young people to You, involving them, through apostolic witness and Catholic Action, in the care of the sick and aged, to help and comfort them. We thank You for this model wife and, through her encouraging witness, we beg You to grant to our families the serene and Christian presence of mothers committed to transform their homes into cenacles of faith and love, rich with generous activity and sanctifying service.

O God, Creator and lover of mankind, You were close to St Gianna when, affected by illness, she was in the painful dilemma of choosing between her own life and the life of the child whom she was carrying within her, a gift long awaited. Trusting You alone, and aware of Your commandment to respect human life, Gianna found the courage to do her duty as a mother and to say "yes" to the new life of her baby, generously sacrificing her own. Through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and after the example of Gianna, inspire all mothers to welcome with love the sparkle of new life.

St Gianna Beretta Molla, pray for us.

Many join to it the shorter prayer of intercession, easily carried in the memory:

O compassionate St Gianna, physician and caregiver to the poor, the elderly, to children and expectant mothers, look lovingly upon our humble prayer, and intercede for us with our Heavenly Father. As a dedicated wife and mother, you imitated the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ, even to the point of giving your life to save the life of your unborn child. Ask the Holy Spirit, I pray, to fill me with courage, so that your words may become my own: "Whatever God wants." If it is in God's loving plan for me, pray that my intention may be granted. (Name your request here.) Amen.

Close each day with one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory Be, offered for all mothers and their unborn children.

The nine days

Each day, say the daily prayer above, name your own intention, then pray with the particular intention set for that day.

Day 1 — For those longing for a child

St Gianna, you knew the joy and the cost of motherhood. We commend to you all married couples who long for a child and have not been given one — comfort them, keep them faithful and hopeful, and obtain for them, if it be God's will, the gift they desire.

Those making the novena chiefly for this intention may wish to join it to the novena to St Gerard Majella, the traditional patron of expectant mothers, or to our novena for fertility, to conceive a baby.

Day 2 — For love of children

St Gianna, you loved children as gifts of God and gave your life for one. Obtain for us a true love of children — that we may receive them as He sends them, protect the smallest and weakest, and never count a child a burden.

Day 3 — To seek God's will

St Gianna, in the hardest choice of your life you said, "Whatever God wants." Teach us to seek His will above our own comfort, to trust Him in the dark, and to make our own that quiet, total surrender.

Day 4 — For generosity

St Gianna, you gave yourself without reserve — to your patients, your husband, your children, and at last your unborn child. Obtain for us a generous heart, freed from selfishness, ready to spend itself for others as Christ spent Himself for us.

Day 5 — For patience in suffering

St Gianna, you bore illness and the fear of death without bitterness, uniting your pain to the Cross. Obtain for all who suffer — the sick, the dying, the frightened — the grace of patience, and the peace of those who suffer in the hope of Christ.

Day 6 — For physicians and nurses

St Gianna, physician and surgeon, you cared for body and soul together and saw the face of the suffering Christ in every patient. Obtain for all doctors, nurses, and caregivers a reverence for human life from conception to natural death, and the courage never to destroy what God has made.

Day 7 — For witness to the sanctity of life

St Gianna, your death preached what your life had taught — that every life is God's and sacred. Make us bold and gentle witnesses to the dignity of every human person, from the child in the womb to the old and the dying.

Day 8 — For an end to abortion

St Gianna, you chose your child's life over your own when many would have chosen otherwise. Intercede for an end to abortion in our land; soften hardened hearts, protect every child in the womb, and give courage to every mother tempted to despair.

(This is the intention many seek by name on the 8th day of the novena to St Gianna — the day traditionally given to the unborn.)

Day 9 — For mothers and families

St Gianna, model of Christian mothers, you made your home a place of faith and love. Bless all mothers, that they may be to their children the very face of God's tenderness; and make our families cenacles of faith, rich in generous service.

On this last day, many add the healing prayer composed by Cardinal Raymond Burke (below), especially for a difficult pregnancy.

Variants of the novena

The novena for a difficult or high-risk pregnancy

For mothers facing a hard or dangerous pregnancy, St Gianna is the surest of intercessors, for she carried one to the end at the cost of her life. The prayer most used for this need was composed for her canonization by Cardinal Raymond Burke:

St 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. St 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.

Prayed over nine days with the daily prayer above, this is the form sought by expectant mothers and by families keeping vigil over a threatened pregnancy. It sits well beside the Annunciation nine-month novena, prayed from the Annunciation to Christmas for a safe delivery.

The short novena to St Gianna

Where the fuller form is too much to carry, the whole devotion may be reduced to the short O compassionate St Gianna prayer above, said once on each of the nine days with your intention named and a Hail Mary added. This is the "short version" many search for, and it loses nothing essential: the same saint, the same trust, the same surrender to God's will.

The novena for mothers and for one's own mother

Because she is a patron of mothers, the novena is often made for a particular mother — a wife, a daughter, one's own mother living or dead — asking St Gianna to obtain for her the graces of her state and to make of her home a place of faith. The daily prayer serves unchanged; name the mother, and pray. See also the novena to St Anne, the mother of Our Lady and patroness of mothers and grandmothers.

How to pray this novena

A novena is simply nine days of steady, trusting prayer. Choose your nine days — the classic window is 19 to 27 April, closing on her feast on the 28th, but any nine consecutive days will do. Pray at a fixed hour each day; say the daily prayer, name your intention plainly, and add the day's particular petition and the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. Where you can, join the novena to Mass and Holy Communion, or at least to a decade of the Rosary. Above all, pray as she did — in submission, ready to receive either the favor you asked or the better thing God chooses to send. The words that made her a saint are the words to make the novena with: "Whatever God wants."

Who is St Gianna Beretta Molla?

Gianna Beretta was born on 4 October 1922 in Magenta, near Milan, the tenth of thirteen children in a deeply devout family. From childhood she took her faith with great seriousness, giving herself to prayer, the sacraments, and works of mercy through Catholic Action and the Society of St Vincent de Paul, drawing other young people with her into the care of the sick and the aged.

She studied medicine at the Universities of Milan and Pavia, taking her degree in 1949, and specialized in pediatrics in 1952. She opened a clinic at Mesero, near her hometown, where she cared with particular tenderness for mothers, babies, the elderly, and the poor, treating the body while never neglecting the soul. She considered a missionary vocation, but came to see marriage and motherhood as the way God asked of her.

In 1954 she met the engineer Pietro Molla, and they married in September 1955. Theirs was a happy and holy marriage; three children followed — Pierluigi, Mariolina, and Laura. Gianna carried the double vocation of physician and mother with joy, seeing both as service of Christ in His little ones.

In 1961, in the second month of her fourth pregnancy, the doctors found a fibroma — a tumor — on her uterus. She was offered three courses: a complete hysterectomy, which would have saved her but killed the child; an abortion, then as now urged as the "medical" choice; or the removal of the tumor alone, which might save the baby but left her own life in grave danger. A physician herself, she understood exactly what she chose. She told the surgeons plainly: if a choice had to be made between her life and the child's, they were to save the child. The tumor alone was removed, and she carried the baby to term.

On 21 April 1962, Good Friday week, her daughter Gianna Emanuela was born, healthy. But infection set in, and after a week of great suffering, borne with the same serenity she had shown all her life, St Gianna died of septic peritonitis on 28 April 1962, at the age of thirty-nine, repeating the name of Jesus. Her last recorded words on the choice she had made were simple: "If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child — I insist on it. Save the baby."

Pope John Paul II beatified her on 24 April 1994 and canonized her on 16 May 2004 — with her husband Pietro and her daughter Gianna Emanuela present, one of the few saints ever raised to the altars in the presence of her own spouse and child. She is honored as a patron of mothers, expectant mothers, physicians, and unborn children, and as one of the great modern witnesses to the Gospel of life. She belongs, like St Maria Goretti, to that line of Italian laywomen the Church has held up in our own time as models of ordinary holiness carried to a heroic end.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is St Gianna Beretta Molla the patron saint of?

St Gianna is honored as a patron of mothers, expectant mothers (especially those in difficult pregnancies), physicians and the medical profession, and unborn children. She is one of the foremost patrons of the pro-life cause, because she chose the life of her unborn child over her own — and because, as a doctor, she knew exactly what she was choosing.

When is St Gianna's feast day?

Her feast is kept on 28 April, the day she died in 1962. The nine days from 19 to 27 April are the traditional time to make the novena, ending on the eve of her feast; but it may be prayed on any nine consecutive days for any need.

Is Gianna Beretta Molla a canonized saint?

Yes. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 24 April 1994 and canonized by him on 16 May 2004. Two miraculous healings — both involving mothers and their pregnancies — were recognized by the Church in her cause. Because her canonization is recent, she does not appear in the 1962 calendar, but she is a fully canonized saint of the Catholic Church.

How did St Gianna die?

She died of septic peritonitis on 28 April 1962, one week after the birth of her fourth child. During her pregnancy a tumor had been found on her uterus; refusing both a hysterectomy and an abortion, she chose to have only the tumor removed so that her baby might live, though it endangered her own life. The child, Gianna Emanuela, was born healthy; her mother died seven days later, at the age of thirty-nine.

Why do people pray the novena to St Gianna for pregnancy and fertility?

Because she is the patron of expectant mothers and gave her life so that her unborn child might live, she is a natural intercessor for couples longing for a child, for mothers in difficult or high-risk pregnancies, and for the safe delivery of a baby. Two of the miracles approved in her cause concerned exactly such cases — mothers and children saved. Many pray her novena together with the novena for fertility, to conceive a baby or the novena to St Gerard Majella.

What is the 8th day of the St Gianna novena for?

In the common form of the novena, each of the nine days carries a particular intention, and the 8th day is traditionally offered for an end to abortion and the protection of every child in the womb — the cause most bound up with her own sacrifice. Some searchers look for the eighth day by name because they are praying the novena over the nine days before her feast and want that day's prayer; it is given in full above.

Can I pray the novena at any time of year?

Yes. Although her feast on 28 April makes the preceding nine days the classic time, a novena may be prayed on any nine consecutive days, for any need. Choose your days, keep them faithfully, and pray in trust.

The Iter Fidei app carries this novena — the daily prayers, the nine intentions, and the story of St Gianna — with day-by-day reminders and audio, so it can be prayed from your phone without a printed sheet. Join early access here.

Sources. The novena and prayer To Obtain Graces Through the Intercession of St Gianna Beretta Molla, approved by the Society of St Gianna Beretta Molla; the prayer for her canonization composed by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke (St Gianna, heroically Christlike wife, mother and physician); the beatification (1994) and canonization (2004) of St Gianna by Pope St John Paul II, and his homilies on those occasions; her own recorded words and letters; the Church's teaching on the sanctity of human life (Fifth Commandment; Evangelium Vitae).