PIETRO AND GIANNA ARE MARRIED

On September 24, 1955 at the age of 33 years old, Gianna’s brother Father Giuseppe married Gianna Beretta to Pietro Molla in the Basilica of San Martino in Magenta. The altar was adorned with pink and white carnations and the long carpet extending the length of the church was lined with flowers and greenery. Gianna was dressed in a white satin gown with a tulle veil pinned at the nape of her neck**. As Gianna began to walk down the aisle on the arm of her brother Ferdinando, everyone in the church was struck by her beauty and expressed their admiration with an applause that broke out through the quiet of the church. Gianna walking down the aisle tuned with her big wide-open eyes surprised at the response from her friends and family.

Gianna and Pietro knelt together and promised to remain united to each other forever with the words of the vows of the Sacrament of Matrimony. They would soon show that the oath of love they made on that day would be stronger than any adversary, stronger even than death.

Pietro later wrote Gianna

“The memory returns of that sudden outburst of applause that began upon your entrance to the church that lasted until you reached the altar. Your brother, Giuseppe, who Saint our
union, exhorted us to give witness to the Gospel and to holiness.”

The happy couple took an extended honeymoon to Rome and all over Italy and Europe. Pietro wrote in a letter a few weeks after the wedding:

“Her holy virtue, the gentle goodness and affection of Gianna, all her cares, give me the full joy and serenity which I asked of Jesus on my wedding day. With Gianna I am sure of forming a truly Christian family on which she will know how to draw the most
beautiful heavenly graces…We have begun and will continue with perseverance the daily recitation of the Rosary. May our heavenly mother always watch over us and give us the grace to be cheered by little angels.” (by which he meant the happy and healthy children
her and Gianna hoped to have)

Following the honeymoon, Gianna & Pietro settled down in a little house near the large firm where Pietro worked. Gianna was a serene and joyful women and her joy had ways of irradiating itself and seemed to spread to those near her. She worked harder than ever as a doctor and as a woman in Catholic Action. She never forgot the Beretta family… regularly writing letters to her faraway brothers and sisters and entertaining those who lived nearby.

** The Society of St Gianna obtained a piece of this dress from Mr Molla and pieces of this dress are sown into the chasuble owned by the Society and often worn by priests at presentations.