St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

Born and named Francesco Possenti on March 1, 1838, to a big family in Italy, his mother Agnes passed away when he was four. There are thirteen of them siblings, and he was the eleventh.

His peers were fond of him and famous because of his charity and religiosity. But he was said to be a difficult child and a partygoer, and he allegedly had romantic involvements on the night he left for the Passionists to become religious.

His education was with the Christian Brothers, then with the Jesuits. He excelled in school, like in the subject of Latin.

But in about 1851, he became seriously ill two times and believed that God was calling him to the religious life. However, he could not join the Jesuits because he was only 17.

The death of his sister Mary Louisa from cholera strengthened his resolve to enter the religious life. She took care of him when their mother died. He was accepted at the novitiate of the Passionists and named Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.

In the procession of the Virgin Mary that Possenti attended, as the ancient icon passed by him, he heard an inner voice asking why he remained in the world. So he took serious steps in Possenti's religious vocation. 

But his father, Sante, did not permit him to join the Passionists and reportedly even recruited relatives to dissuade him.

His brother Aloysius, a Dominican friar, accompanied him for the novitiate of the Passionists at Morrovalle.

From the time he pronounced his vows until his death, his spiritual director was Priest Norbert of Holy Mary.

While he turned out to be an excellent student, he eventually showed symptoms of tuberculosis. But this did not worry Possenti, who remained cheerful while keeping his routine, thereby inspiring his fellow students up to his deathbed.

He religiously observed the Passionist Rule—in prayer, charity, bodily penances, obedience to his superiors, and devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Only four years in the religious life, he succumbed to death from tuberculosis in the retreat at Isola del Gran Sasso, in the province of Teramo, only at the age of 24 in the early hours of February 27, 1862.

But peacefully smiling while holding an image of Our Lady of Sorrows, and this was witnessed by his community. The same day, his burial took place.

He was canonized Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows by Pope Benedict XV, who declared him a patron saint of Catholic youth, of students, and of those studying for the priesthood in 1920.

In 1959, Pope John XXIII named him the patron of the Abruzzi region, where he spent the last two years of his life.

A U.S. organization named after him, the Saint Gabriel Possenti Society, has been lobbying since 1987 that he be named "patron saint of hand gunners." It claimed that Gabriel's skill with handguns saved the village of Isola del Gran Sasso in 1860.

Gabriel reportedly shot a lizard from afar, which scared away a band of 20 Garibaldi Red Shirts.

Bernard Mary of Jesus, Gabriel’s companion in the novitiate, cited two miracles presented for the beatification of Gabriel: healings of Maria Mazzarella from pulmonary tuberculosis and periostitis, and Dominic Tiber from an inoperable hernia.