Today is the feast day of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, a modern-day Saint from Italy who was a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul as a young adult. She went on to become a doctor, wife and mother of four children.

St. Gianna was canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II, who was himself a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at one time, as he explained during his homily at the Beatification of Frederic Ozanam: “…at age twenty, with a group of friends, he [Ozanam] created the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul which aimed at helping the very poor, in a spirit of service and sharing. These Conferences rapidly spread beyond France to all the European countries and to the world. I myself as a student before the Second World War was a member of one of them.”

Find out more about St. Gianna, patron saint of mothers, physicians, and unborn children, in this video.