GOD'S WILL FOR A TEEN

 

SERVANT of GOD GUILIA GABRIELI was an Italian teenager. She enjoyed travelling, shopping and fashion. She also had a great talent for writing. When she was 12, she was diagnosed with sarcoma. Her faith in Christ shone during the last two years of her life. She was devoted to Our Lady and Bl. Chiara Luce Badano. Due to her heroic patience, even her doctors and nurses “found a new value for life.”

Giulia, born in 1997, grew up in Bergamo, in the San Tomaso de' Calvi neighborhood, together with her younger brother Davide. She was a normal girl with a sunny disposition, deeply Catholic. Among her passions were writing and dance.

 On August 1, 2009, while on vacation at the seaside with her family, Giulia noticed a swelling on her left hand. Initially, her parents thought it to be a simple insect bite. Later, when the symptoms did not abate, Giulia underwent a series of tests.

The diagnosis turned out to be one of the most aggressive sarcomas, which necessitated chemotherapy. Even though the disease had made her very weak and in pain, Giulia continued to go to school, brilliantly passing her 8th grade exams, which she had to take at home. Her chosen thesis was dedicated to war and the Shoah, accompanied by a critical analysis of Pablo Picasso 's painting "Guernica" .

 Giulia had a particular talent for writing, having been awarded twice for her stories. The pages she herself wrote about her experience of the disease were later collected and published in the book "Un ganci in mezzo al cielo" (A Hook in the Middle of the Sky).

In her illness, Giulia strove to never stray from the Lord, but rather come closer to Him. Yet there were moments of crisis in which she wondered if the Lord  had abandoned her.  Having gone to Padua for radiotherapy, she entered the Basilica of St Anthony where, she had a chance meeting with a woman in prayer.

As she was resting her hand on the saint’s tomb, the woman came over and placed her hand over hers. “She didn’t say anything to me, but she had a look on her face as if to say, ‘Don’t worry. Keep going. God is with you.’ I had walked into the basilica upset and in tears, and walked out with a smile and joyful at the thought that God has never abandoned me.” She found joy in facing her ordeal which would never abandon her again. .

Her joy was contagious and she was the one who consoled and supported relatives and friends, even surprising the doctors who assisted her, whom she jokingly called "her superheroes". Her spirit was an occasion for conversions even among them.   Pediatrician Pieremilio Cornelli commented, “I now understand the value of life and love; I experienced it in this young woman’s life.”

 A nurse named Bruna Togni adds, “When she [first] walked into the hospital, for me she was just another one of the patients I was used to seeing every day, but thanks to her I realized that I had only been living on the surface of reality. There was something about her, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was powerful. I began thinking about what had led me to undertake such a special profession as nursing. I’ve learned to penetrate people’s hearts, to look into their eyes.” 

 After a first trip to Medjugorje, she became so close to Our Lady, that for her 14th birthday she asked for a second trip as a present, accompanied by about fifty relatives and friends to whom she had communicated her enthusiasm.

“I often feel sick. I am afraid of the effects of the therapy, but the thought that comes to me is that every day, He leads me on my way, step by step, alongside the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Mother. Just thinking that He is with me, that He is looking out for me, all this helps me to put on a smile and feel better.”

 Giulia died in Bergamo on the evening of August 19, 2011, while the Via Crucis for young people was taking place at the World Youth Day in Madrid. The bishop of Bergamo, Francesco Beschi, with whom Giulia had woven an intense spiritual dialogue, told her story.

 On 7 April 2019, at the Sanctuary of the Madonna dei Campi in Stezzano, Monsignor Beschi, in the presence of the postulator Fra Carlo Calloni and the vice-postulator Don Mattia Tomasoni, began the diocesan phase of the beatification process, proclaiming Giulia "Servant of God". 

A few months after her death, her family and friends established the Association con Giulia Onlus with the aim of carrying out the projects that Giulia had at heart especially for young people and sick children.

“Now I know that my story only has two possible endings: my complete healing, thanks to a miracle – something I am asking the Lord for, because I have many dreams I would like to fulfill. Or perhaps, encountering myself with the Lord, which is a beautiful thing. Both are good endings. The important thing, as Blessed Chiara Luce says, is that God’s will be done.”