As a young boy, Gerard showed his love for Jesus by doing all he could to help the poor. He went to work so that he would have money to buy them food and clothes. Once he gave a beggar a brand new suit he himself really needed.
Gerard dearly loved Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He wanted to become a religious to serve them all his life. But he had a very hard time trying to enter a religious life, because he was sickly. Besides that, his mother and his sisters absolutely did not want him to go. Still he kept trying. At last he was accepted as a brother in the Redemptorist Order.
“Let me do it! I am the youngest,” Brother Gerard would say whenever there was hard lowly work to be done. Everyone loved and admired this good, humble brother.
“I want only what God wants for me,” St. Gerard often exclaimed. And he was happy when he had something to suffer for Jesus.
Whoever is called to become a priest, a brother, or a sister should trust in God and follow his vocation, no matter how hard a time he has.
