While exploring Rome I ducked into Santi Giovanni e Paolo and found it empty of tourists. One of my friends had suggested that I check out the awful chandeliers. So I checked it out. Yeah. Gaudy. Otherwise, it’s a beautiful church. So I walked around.
A photo in a shrine caught my eye: a holy glamor shot of a young woman.
I’m not a drop-to-my-knees-and-pray type of person. But I had been walking for hours. Kneeling at that shrine seemed like a good idea.
I knelt there for several minutes. I was probably actually praying about something, eyes closed, when I noticed — suddenly and miraculously — I was surrounded by the intense but pleasant fragrance of lilies.
After another minute or so, I opened my eyes and saw — duh — an arrangement of fresh lilies in front of the altar. I hadn’t noticed them before.
I mention this because it illustrates what I mean when I say that dead saints “talk.” You find yourself doing something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. You notice something that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. And somehow a saint is involved.
I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around. And, I swear, I was haunted by the fragrance of lilies. I smelled them everywhere but saw them nowhere. Blooming honeysuckle vines spill over walls and fences around the city at that time of year. So I thought that maybe I was confusing the scents. But no. I was smelling lilies until 5 p.m. Then it stopped.
A few days later, I was thinking about the woman in the holy glamor photo. So I headed back to Giovanni e Paolo to take another look. A wedding was in progress so I didn’t go inside.
Instead, I went into a gift shop around back. I asked a woman in the shop if she knew anything about the saint in the photo.
The woman lit up. “San Gemma!”
I asked, “Who was she?”
“She is San Gemma!”
I know very little Italian, but I understood that the woman was explaining something about stigmata. She was thrilled to tell me what she knew. Friendly and animated. It made an impression on me because her manner wasn’t at all pedantic or proselytizing. Rather, she was sharing with me the greatest joy of her life, it seemed.
I mention this episode because it further illustrates what I mean when I say that dead saints “talk.” It’s a communication that doesn’t rely on language. It’s a hint or intimation — a subtle but persistent curiosity that prompts you to ask questions of strangers in gift shops, for example. It’s a joyful feeling that anyone can understand, not a load of doctrine and dogma.
Later, I looked up St. Gemma Galgani. Many saints were accused by their contemporaries of being phonies or, perhaps, just crazy. Such was the case with San Gemma.
I don’t know all the facts about her. Still, I feel that she got my attention somehow, and prompted me to seek something — although I’m not sure what.
