St. Gabriel Possenti
Feast 02-27 · Canonized 1920
Patron of
About
Gabriel Possenti was born in 1838 in Assisi, Italy, the eleventh of thirteen children. He was a lively young man known for his charm, fine clothes, and love of parties and hunting.
During a cholera epidemic, he witnessed the death of a young woman and resolved to change his life. He joined the Passionist congregation in 1856, taking the name Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.
He lived a short but intense religious life marked by devotion to the Virgin Mary and died of tuberculosis in 1862 at the age of twenty-four. He was canonized in 1920 and is the patron saint of students and young people.
Suggested prayer
O God, who turned Gabriel Possenti from parties and fine clothes to the Passionists when he saw death in a cholera epidemic, grant through his intercession that students and all who are young may give their best years to You. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.