October 16, is the feast of St. Gerard
Born in Muro, about fifty miles south of Naples, Italy, in April 1726, St. Gerard accomplished much in his short life. He died on October 16, 1755 at the age of 29.
As a young man, Gerard was an apprentice tailor. His father had died young so Gerard was charged with providing income to support his mother and three sisters. He divided his earnings between his mother, the poor, and Masses for the deceased.
Gerard felt called to religious life. After various failed attempts to become a Franciscan friar, he was accepted into the Redemptorists in 1749. Two years later he made his profession as a religious brother.
Though he suffered various physical maladies that made him chronically weak in body, he did the work of three, and his great charity earned for him the title Father of the Poor. He is also the patron saint of Mothers due to his prayerful intervention that led to the successful birth of a child to a woman who was seemingly dying in childbirth. Both mother and child survived.
One of his last requests before his early death was that a white placard be tacked to his door with the inscription:
“Here the will of God is done, as God wills, and as long as God wills.”
Gerard died at the Redemptorist Monastery in Caposele, near the town of his birth. He is buried below the altar of Materdomini, the Redemptorist Church in Caposele.
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