St John Paul II’s powerful words to women who choose motherhood

Gianna Beretta Molla, crowning an exemplary existence as a student, as a girl committed to the ecclesial community and as a happy wife and mother, knew how to offer her life as a sacrifice, so that the creature she carried in her womb could live – and who is here with us today! She, as a surgeon, was well aware of what she was facing, but she did not flinch from her sacrifice, thereby confirming the heroic nature of her virtues.

Motherhood can be a source of joy, but it can also become a source of suffering, and sometimes of great disappointments. In this case, love becomes a test, often heroic, which costs so much to a mother’s heart … these heroic women do not always find support in the world around them. On the contrary, the cultural models frequently promoted and broadcast by the media do not encourage motherhood. In the name of progress and modernity the values of fidelity, chastity, sacrifice, to which a host of Christian wives and mothers have borne and continue to bear outstanding witness, are presented as obsolete.

Thus it happens that a woman who is determined to be consistent with her principles often feels deeply alone … Her guiding principle is Christ, who revealed what love is bestowed on us by the Father. A woman who believes in Christ finds powerful support in precisely such love that endures everything.

We thank you, heroic mothers, for your invincible love! We thank you for your intrepid trust in God and in his love. We thank you for the sacrifice of your life … In the Paschal Mystery, Christ restores to you the gift you gave him. Indeed, he has the power to give you back the life you gave him as an offering.

John Paul II on the canonization of St. Gianna Molla.