OUR MISSION
“Dear Friends of Saint Gianna and Pietro Molla,
I am writing to you with great joy and with deepest gratitude to Our Lord. I write to inform you that I, together with Father Timothy P. Elliott, Founding Pastor of the Saint Gianna Catholic Church in Wentzville, Missouri, and Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla, MD, have established the Saint Gianna Beretta Molla and Pietro Molla Foundation, a North Dakota Non-Profit Corporation, with its seat in Fargo, North Dakota.
As is stated in Article III of the Bylaws, the Foundation exclusively pursues essential religious, educational and charitable purposes. It aims to honor and to perpetuate throughout the world the memory of Saint Gianna and of her saintly spouse Pietro, while, at the same time, to give testimony to the example of their lives and to impart knowledge of their spirituality. […]
Saint Gianna embraced the vocation of Holy Matrimony with great joy and enthusiasm. We also have much to learn from her very humble, holy spouse. In her married life, and even in her engagement, Saint Gianna recognized the holiness of her spouse, Pietro. […]
It was the immense love in their marital union that enabled both of them to accept the sacrifices which the Lord was asking of them. It was Pietro who honored his wife and indeed made a total sacrifice of himself. […]
Gianna Emanuela is collecting many testimonies about her father’s reputation as a holy man. A prayer for the private devotion to him has been prepared. […]
Thus, the Saint Gianna and Pietro Molla Foundation has been established to honor properly, together with his saintly wife, this holy spouse, father and widower, honest and great worker, a humble servant whose heart was filled with gratitude, despite his intense sufferings and loss.
This exemplary and holy couple worked together for the good of each other, for their family, and for the good of the Church. The world today particularly needs Saint Gianna’s and Pietro’s beautiful example of marriage and family life, and the Foundation is honored to serve this mission, for the good of many souls and families. […].”
"Jesus, who created me and who preserves me amidst graces and blessings without limits: You who between my distant flights now in time and those of today, in these same Heavens, have given me the immense gift of a Wife of gold, like the most marvelous dawn that only up here can be admired, and of two Treasures, splendid as the Heaven in its full brightness that can only be embraced from on high; You who will soon give to us again the divine gift of another Treasure, hear my Prayer:
Bless Gianna and our Treasures! Transform into graces their anxiety and trepidation for my long staying far away and my flights. Listen, today and always, to the Prayers of Gianna, of my Gigetto, of my Mother and of all those who love me! Look upon the little folded hands of my Mariolina! Give me the grace of a joyful return! And grant that at every moment I may advance always in Your Way, just as the plane flies, precisely, on course, safe, radio-controlled. May I always have the holy Fear of You, as that which can be felt up here, where I am more than ever entrusted to your divine Providence, sustained on the wings of the prayers of Gianna, of my Treasures, of my Mother and of all those who pray or me. Grant that the serene and bright atmosphere of the sky through which I am flying at this moment may always reign over our family; the purity of the clear air I breathe. Grant that the clouds may just skim over us and leave us quickly, like the small clouds up here. Keep my family and my dear ones joyful and serene in Your Way and in Your Light, today and until the day we will fly up, up, higher and higher, up to You. Amen".
("The prayer of my flights" from Pietro's letter to his wife, Saint Gianna, of May 31, 1959)