Saint Gianna Molla Feast Day

Saint Gianna Molla's feast day is this Thursday (April 28th).  Most of the feast days that I'm celebrating with Curly this year are name saints for our family.  No one in my family is named Gianna, but I know that my mom really likes this saint because she became a saint by being, "just a mom."  She was an Italian mother (and doctor) who was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst while pregnant.  Instead of terminating the pregnancy, she carried the child to term and died because of the cyst.  She was canonize in 2004.  I think it's awesome to learn about recent saints who lived relatively normal lives (and holy lives, of course).  It puts sainthood into a more possible frame of reference.  I may not be a saint, but I can learn a lot from and live a lot like Saint Gianna.  However, there are a lot of unattainable saints.  I probably can't (or won't) live like Saint Brendan the Navigator--who travelled over the oceans with a group of monks and, as legend has it, had Mass on the back of a whale.  I like to reach for the stars, but realistically--that's not going to happen.

To celebrate Saint Gianna this week, I'm going to focus on her life--being a mom and a pediatrician, working with kids and families, living her faith even when it was difficult.  Here is a link to a bunch of saint coloring pages.  Saint Gianna is halfway down the page.

I've read online that a lot of people serve cannoli to celebrate her feast day since she's Italian.  Instead of buying cannoli (or making them--ouch!) I made cute and delicious Lacy Oatmeal Cookies, rolled them into a tube, and filled them with whipped cream.  The cookies were relatively easy to make.  I did add another 1/2 cup of flour to the recipe since the first batch through the oven were too thin to be practical.  I also used Rich Whip which is dairy free.  The fake whipped cream tasted surprisingly delicious.
  

I let Curly sample while I was burning my hands trying to get these to gracefully form into tubes.  She took a bite and said, "Yummy!  They taste like popcorn!"  I assumed she was just being three and weird.  But, no...later when I sampled, I thought the exact same thing.  Yummy!  They taste like popcorn!  Hmm.

Stuck to the pan.  I couldn't form fast enough.

Cooling while forming delightfully.

To finish these, I sprinkled the top with Cinnamon. By that time, I had already eaten more than my fill of crumbs and "whipped cream." Scott said that the cinnamon really made them delicious.

                     

Linking to these and these linky parties!