Eating Pizza with a Saint's Daughter

Roxane Salonen describes a trip with her son to the Saint Gianna and Pietro Molla Maternity Home, where they spent a day with a saint’s daughter. 

My 19-year-old son Nick and I set off on June 14 to meet with Gianna Emanuela, the youngest daughter of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla; the “baby” whose life she died to save. Gianna was on an extended visit to the maternity home named for her “saint mom and holy dad,” as she calls her parents, located in a tiny town about an hour and a half north of us. 

I’d met Gianna through email exchanges while writing about her holy parents for the National Catholic Register, during which time we agreed it would be nice to meet in person someday. After attending the “Canticle of Praise” event celebrating 20 years of the home’s existence in April, I was put back onto her path, and plans for a meeting unfolded. 

The meaning of our meeting

On our drive there, I shared with Nick what I knew about this sweet woman from Italy whom I’d gotten to know through our written exchanges, but it was hard to adequately convey what this visit meant to me — and could mean to him as well. When he commented that our memories can deepen over time, I emphatically agreed: “In fact, you will probably appreciate this visit much more ten years from now than today.” I wanted him to know that although he might not fully understand the significance of meeting a canonized saint’s daughter right now, someday it would become clearer.  

Grace flowed abundantly that day. Beyond knowing that Gianna, a pizza lover, planned to have us join her for lunch, I didn’t know how else we might fill our time together. Arriving at the home, we quietly crept in, and, uncertain of how we should proceed, I called her to announce our presence. I could hear a cell phone ringing in a room nearby. A few seconds later, Gianna popped her head out from an office door just feet from us. “Oh, you’re here!” 

We offered her a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate-covered potato chips, famously known in our city of Fargo as “Chippers,” and soon, our discourse began: a conversation that extended four hours. Gianna is so friendly and warm, and the awkwardness I thought could manifest simply didn’t happen. My son was receptive to it all, from choosing pizza toppings and dining together, to touring the Visitation chapel, where we prayed, enjoyed meaningful conversations, paused at St. Gianna’s relics and a memento of Pietro, and marveled over the newly commissioned painting of Saint Gianna and Pietro by Spanish artist Raúl Berzosa. 

The painting had been unveiled at the anniversary event and includes a beautiful depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe hovering over Saint Gianna and Pietro with cherubs overhead, including one with a purposefully striking likeness to Mariolina, another of the Molla children, who died at age 6. 

An understanding of the heart

My takeaways from that cherished day are many, but they largely involve a better understanding of Gianna Emanuela’s heart, including why she relinquished her career as a medical doctor, a geriatrician, to work on her parents’ legacies — especially her father’s. As she said, though her mother is known by many, her father is the one she knew. Her mother became “concrete” to Gianna Emanuela through Pietro, who infused his beloved Gianna’s essence into daily conversations and doings. 

Gianna is indebted to her mother for having given her life, but she’s indebted to her father just as much, if not more so, for bringing life to her, over and over. In his last seven years, Gianna tended to him tirelessly, and seems best equipped to help the world see that her beloved father, Pietro, is every bit as worthy of sanctity as her beloved mother. 

Spending half a day with her and hearing about her deeply faith-filled family, including her uncle Venerable Father Alberto Beretta, O.F.M., I came away invigorated to help communicate how both her parents, in their sacrament of love and commitment, helped open for each other the doors of sanctity.  

A truly heroic father

Please pray with me, Nick, Gianna, and many throughout the world, especially in this month when we celebrate fatherhood, that Pietro will soon be recognized as the truly heroic dad he was, full of fidelity to God and his family, and, markedly, his beautiful wife with whom he shared a mere six and a half years of marriage on earth — but a lifetime of love.  

Pietro Molla, pray for us! 

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Copyright 2024 Roxane Salonen
Images: Copyright 2024 Gianna Emanuela Molla, all rights reserved, used with permission.