Gerard was born at Muro, Italy, in 1726 and joined the Redemptorists at the age of twenty-three, becoming a professed lay brother in 1752. He served as sacristan, gardener, porter, infirmarian, and tailor. However, because of his great piety, extraordinary wisdom, and his gift of reading consciences, he was permitted to counsel communities of religious women.This humble servant of God also had the faculties of levitation and bilocation associated with certain mystics. His charity, obedience, and selfless service as well as his ceaseless mortification for Christ made him the perfect model of lay brothers. He was afflicted with tuberculosis and died in 1755 at the age of twenty-nine. He was canonized in 1904 by Pope St. Pius X.
This great Saint is invoked as a Patron of expectant mothers as a result of a miracle effected through his prayers for a woman labor.
PRAYER: God, by Your grace St. Gerard persevered in imitating Christ in His poverty and humility. Through his intercession, grant that we may faithfully follow our vocation and reach the perfection that You held out us in Your Son. Amen.