Pierina Gilli

Pierina Gilli (August 3, 1911 – January 12, 1991), was an Italian visionary who claimed to receive apparitions and messages from the Virgin Mary in 1947 and 1966.

The Marian apparitions were originally determined by the local ordinary, after consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), to be lacking in sufficient evidence of credibility.

Pierina Gilli was born on August 3, 1911, in the San Giorgio section of the northern Italian municipality of Montichiari.

Her parents, Pancrazio Gilli and Rosa Bartoli, had three children, of which Pierina was the eldest.

Her family was poor, as her father worked as a daily hired farm-worker.

Due to its limited household income, the family often moved to various residences in Montichiari.

When Pierina was seven years old her father, died, leaving her mother to support the three children.

Despite all of Pierina's troubles, a soothing glimpse of her caring and devout family upbringing can be observed by this early childhood reminiscence from Pierina's diary: "I was the first of nine children, I the first to be delighted in the joy, the bliss, and the caresses of my parents. The day of 3 August 1911 was the dawn of my earthly coming, and I was baptized on August 5, the feast of the Madonna of the Snow; on that given day, my Mamma consecrated me to the true Mamma in Heaven, so that her maternal protection would preserve me as white and pure as snow.".

At eighteen, Pierina worked as a children's assistant at a communal nursery school in Montichiari.

When she was twenty years old, a marriage proposal was made to her by an honest and well-intentioned young man.

For two months Pierina intimately suffered so much, because she did not feel herself to be called to the married life, but rather, she felt that the Lord wanted her totally for Himself.

Her confessor finally spoke concerning her most genuine thoughts, thus confirming her vocation.

Pierina was initially accepted as a postulant by the religious sisters' community of the Handmaids of Charity, but this soon had to be set aside for the first time by Pierina due to her health problems, including pleurisy, that persisted for several months.

Between 1918 and 1922, Pierina was placed in a Montichiari orphanage, conducted by the sisters of the Handmaids of Charity.

This experience had a lasting impact on Pierina.

Pierina received her First Holy Communion in the orphanage when she was eight.

Pierina returned to her family to assist her mother with the care of her two younger siblings, at the age of 11.

At age 12, her mother (who was now remarried), and eight siblings moved to live in a cottage with her step-family.

Pierina claimed she had received inappropriate attention from her step-father.

Although not wishing to introduce any discord into these two families that were now living together, Pierina eventually confided everything to her mother.

Partly due to that trauma, Pierina decided to consider a vocation in the religious life at age seventeen.

Her confessor advised her to wait, in order to further discern any genuine religious calling to the consecrated life.

Instead, Pierina sought employment, and she worked for about seven years (from age 20 to 26: from 1931 to 1937) as a domestic servant of Father Giuseppe Brochini, and as caretaker of his elderly (frail and blind) mother, in the nearby small town of Carpenedolo.

Pierina then focused on obtaining her nursing license at the "White Villa" Care Home (managed by the Sisters of Charity of St. Antida Thouret) in the city of Brescia.

Subsequently, starting at age 29, and throughout the four years of World War II (1941–1945), she worked as a licensed nurse's aide in the Civil Hospital (managed by the Handmaids of Charity) in the smaller city of Desenzano del Garda, located on the southern shore of Lake Garda, within sight of the north Italian Alps.

Sister Maria Crocifissa Di Rosa (Mary Crucified of the Rose) was the foundress of the congregation of the Handmaids of Charity.

On April 14, 1944, Pierina, then 32 years old, was accepted as a postulant by the Handmaids of Charity.

She never attained the profession of final religious vows at this religious institute.

Even so, this congregation of women deeply influenced her spiritual growth during her formative years, continuing well into her later life.

She was subsequently assigned as a nurse at the Children's Hospital in the city of Brescia.

On December 1, 1944, Pierina contracted meningitis, and was taken to her religious order's infirmary in Ronco for infectious isolation and medical treatment.

The infirmary was located in a tiny section of the small Alpine village of Corteno Golgi, in the Brescia province.

After twelve days in a comatose state Pierina was administered the Last Rites.

Pierina recorded that beginning December 17, 1944, Sister Maria Crocifissa Di Rosa began to appear to her.

Sister Maria held a vial of ointment that was given to her by Our Lady, and she anointed Pierina, saying comfortingly to her: "You will be cured, but you will have a heavy cross to bear."

She died in 1855, and was canonized a saint on June 12, 1954, by Pope Pius XII.

However, a process of review which began in 2013 and is ongoing as of 2022 has reached a provisional finding of the 'validity and exemplarity of the mystical-spiritual experience of Pierina, as well as the richness of her existential, humble and virtuous story.' Having reached a favourable view of the person of the visionary, the diocese is conducting a review of the theology of Pierina's writings in the light of Catholic teaching.

Pierina was born in the municipality of Montichiari which is located in the Brescia province of the Lombardy region in northern Italy.

She died there when she was 79 years old.

She is mainly known as the seer who claimed the Blessed Virgin Mary revealed herself as Rosa Mystica; the message focussed on Our Lady's motherly care for her deeply beloved consecrated souls of priests and of male and female members of religious institutes within the Roman Catholic Church.