Satan hates St Gemma Galgani
The Passion Flower of Lucca
Last night we decided to plan our August Vlog update about current film productions and we planned to make a special Vlog about Saint Gemma Galgani and the significance of the Passion Flower the following morning. We planned our Vlog, decided to stand in front of our passion vine at the end of our garden and made notes and gathered information. The vine has been creeping along with its beautiful flowers and fruit and looked magnificent over our back gate.
Imagine our shock when we woke up and began to get ready and found that someone was in the process of hacking it to pieces! We managed to stop them just in time so that we had a bit of a back drop and some flowers to be able to do our presentation but what timing!
It's lovely to be able to have a passionflower vine in a Catholic garden because the flowers have been used for centuries to speak about the Passion of Christ. All aspects of the flower represent certain elements of Jesus' Passion. Saint Gemma Galgani had a great devotion to the Passion of Christ and understood the significance of all that Jesus suffered.
Satan hated Saint Gemma Galgani, especially her prayers for the conversion of sinners. For two years Saint Gemma suffered the stigmata and passion of Christ every Friday. She had a great sense of the realty of sin and offered many prayers of reparation. Because of her link to the Passion of Christ, her desire to be a Passionist nun and her great purity, among the many beautiful names for Gemma are 'The Passion Flower of Lucca' and 'The White Passion Flower of Lucca'.
In several books or paintings of Saint Gemma, the passionflower vine and its flowers are often used to decorate the covers or accompany the image.
The Passionflower vine that grows at the end of our garden is a Blue Passionflower. It is also known as 'blue crown', 'flower of 5 wounds' and 'Jesus flower'. It is a wonderful Catholic plant due to its symbolism of the Passion. It is also persistent, hardy and sometimes called a nuisance!
Spanish missionaries used the structures of the plant to instruct converts about the Passion of Christ. Varies elements of the flower represent the Crown of Thorns, the Nails, the Holy Lance, and the colours represent heaven and purity.
The flower presents a beautiful link to Saint Gemma Galgani, the Passion Flower of Lucca and we look forward to presenting our DVD about Saint Gemma. In our August Vlog we shall be speaking about the flower and about St Gemma. We will be putting our Vlog together and it will be available to watch on our Youtube channel soon.
In March of this year we filmed some scenes from St Gemma Galgani's life for our DVD. Here are some screenshots of footage we shall be using in the film:
The girl who portrayed St Gemma for us made her Confirmation a few months later and chose St Gemma as her Confirmation name and patron Saint. What a wonderful Saint to choose!
Our film about St Gemma Galgani is coming soon from Mary's Dowry Productions.
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