Gerard, the youngest of five children of Dominic and Benedetta Golella Majella, was born on April 6, 1726, in the town of Muro near Naples. He was a sickly child, but he inherited a strong faith and character from his parents. When Gerard was twelve, the sudden death of his father made it necessary for him to leave school. He became apprenticed to a tailor so that he could follow the trade of his father.

As a young man he attempted three times to enter one religious Order, but was refused because of frail health. He was still determined to become a Brother, and the occasion of a mission conducted by the Redemptorists in Muro gave him new hope. He asked to be admitted as a candidate in their Order, but again was refused because the felt that his health would not be equal to the rigors of monastery life. So persistent was the young man that Father Paul Cafaro, the superior of the missionaries, advised his mother to lock him in his room on thenight they were leaving Muro, lest he try to follow them. Gerard’s mother did so. The next morning when she unlocked the door she found an empty bed, an open window from which hung a sheet, and a note on the table that read: "I have gone to become a saint."

Gerard caught up with the missionaries just as they were leaving town. After many entreaties, Father Cafaro finally sent him to the novice master at Iliceto with this note: "I am sending you a useless lay brother."

In the monastery at Iliceto, Gerard surprised everyone. He was a model of obedience. He carefully and cheerfully went about his appointed tasks. At 23, this humble little tailor grasped well the meaning of religious life. In receiving permission to take his first vows (obedience, poverty, chastity), his lifelong dream was fulfilled. He was a Redemptorist Brother.

The priests liked to take Brother Gerard on the missions because everything seemed to go well when he was along. Normally, the Brother would instruct the children while the priests preached to their parents. Brother Gerard impressed everyone with his example, bringing many back to the faith even when the preachers’ sermons had failed.

Gerard approached people with great empathy and honesty. Soon his reputation began to spread. God worked through him: the sick were cured, the poor were fed, sinners returned to the faith. It was not only the humble that came to Gerard. Priests and Sisters began to ask him for spiritual advice. Sister Marie Celeste, the foundress of the Redemptoristine nuns and a great mystic, chose him as her spiritual director.

Gerard’s main concern was always the will of God. He tried to see it in all the events of his life. He placed himself completely at God’s disposal, but had the same struggles that all humans do. He sometimes felt that God was far from him, that all his efforts were in vain; "I’m crushed and ask for your prayer. I’m going through a difficult time, as only God knows."

But Gerard didn’t realize how difficult things could become. In the summer of 1754, he was falsely accused of fathering a child. The mother was from a family he knew in nearby Lioni. Gerard was disgraced. He wrote to a friend, "I don’t know what to say. I cry so much I can hardly write. This hurts me so much, I feel like dying... I can’t tell you how much I’m suffering!" Some time later, the girl admitted she had lied. Gerard had never spoken a word against her.

In 1754, he was transferred to the monastery at Caposele, the site of the famous shrine of the Mother of God, "Materdomini." Despite his rapidly failing health, God continued to work through him. Then one day, as Gerard was praying in the church, he began to hemorrhage. Although his doctor assured him it was nothing serious, Brother Gerard Majella died on October 16, 1755, at Materdomini. He was only 29 years old, and he had spent less than six years as a Redemptorist. Withing days of his death, pilgrims started coming to his grave.

Gerard is a model for all Redemptorists. He is a patron of vocations, because he had so much difficutlty getting into a religious Order and because he counseled many men and women religious.

Soon after his death, the mothers of Italy took Gerard to their hearts and made him their patron. At the process of his beatification one witness testified that he was known as "the saint of happy childbirth." Devotion to Saint Gerard as the patron for expectant mothers has become very popular in many countries, especially in North America, both in the United States and Canada.

In 1904, the Church declared Gerard Majella a saint. His feast day is celebrated on October 16.