THE SAINTS: STORIES, IMAGES, MEDITATIONS

PRINCESS TURNED POOR CLARE NUN TO BE CANONIZED

Blessed Camilla Battista da Varano Answered Vocational Call

By Carmen Elena Villa

ROME, OCT. 13, 2010 (Zenit.org).- On Sunday, Benedict XVI will canonize Camilla da Varano, who left the life of a princess and multiple marriage proposals to become a Poor Clare nun at age 23.

The Pope will canonize her in St. Peter's Square together with five others.

Camilla was born in 1458 in a small city in central Italy, which today has around 40,000 inhabitants. Her father, Giulio Cesare de Varano, was the prince of Camerino. Thus she was introduced to, and educated in, the splendor of the court.

The postulator for her cause of canonization, Franciscan Father Giovangiuseppe Califano, explained to ZENIT that "in the Renaissance period lordly palaces were the center of politics, also of culture and mercantilism," and thus Camilla spent her youth in celebrations, dances and social life. She studied Latin, law, painting, dancing, and horseback riding.

Almost five centuries have gone by since her death. In fact, Camilla's cause for canonization was halted for 100 years because of problems related to the choice of her postulator.

Father Califano noted, however, that "these years of apparent silence were very fruitful for the systematic investigation and critical publication of the blessed's writings."

On Good Friday, when she was 9 years old, Camilla heard a homily in which Brother Domenico da Leonessa asked those present to shed at least one tear every Friday out of love for Jesus. The young girl accepted his suggestion, which she followed every subsequent Friday for the rest of her life.

"Through the gift of these tears, shed with a child's commitment, contemplation of the Lord's Passion became the agreeable and spontaneous means that oriented her whole spiritual life," said her postulator.

Following Christ

As a youth she felt strongly attracted to what the court offered her, but at the same time she felt the call to give it all up to follow Christ.

Mother Chiara Laura Seroboli, abbess of the convent of St. Clare of Camerino, which was founded by Camilla later in her life, said, "Initially, as many of us, she was unable to choose and did not hesitate to lead a double life."

The abbess explained: "On one hand were the dances, songs and distractions that the court offered her. On the other, recollection and the struggle in which God drew her absorbed her wholly."

It was during Lent of 1479, while the princess listened to the preaching of Brother Francesco de Urbino, that she perceived the interior light to understand the gift of consecrated virginity.

Her postulator said, "It was faithfulness to her commitment to prayer and spiritual direction that opened a gap for the spirit."

Camilla entered the monastery of St. Clare of Urbino in 1481. "Lord, with my life make me always praise, bless and glorify you and edify my brothers," she said in one of her writings.

She made her religious professions two years later and took the name Sister Battista.

Spiritual battle

Camilla faced a strong spiritual battle. For five years she lived through a dark night of the spirit.

Mother Seroboli said, "From the intensity of spiritual graces that had accompanied her in the first phase of her falling in love, Camilla now seemed abandoned in a sacrificing and raw essentialness."

Yet she did not let herself be defeated by this event. The abbess noted, "Emerging with greater frequency in her writings is recourse to the images of the Song of Songs, to the teaching of her Beloved on the part of the loved one, subject of understandable anguish due to the perceived abandonment."

In 1502 Sister Battista's father and brothers were killed and her family attacked, events which "'crucified' her with Christ and enabled her to be silent "where words do not suffice to explain the injustice of Calvary," said Mother Seroboli.

Sister Battista was forced to seek refuge in the city of Atri, a small locality in Abruzzi, the southern region of Italy.

Another event that caused her great sorrow and many hours of prayer was when she found out in 1517 that in Germany, the Augustinian monk Martin Luther announced his separation from the Roman Church.

The future saint had various mystical experiences, which are reflected in her numerous writings. In these writing she also reveals her love of the crucified Christ.

Mother Seroboli described them as "a precious and very narrow way," that enabled her to reread "her own life in the light of the Paschal Mystery."

Sister Battista died on May 31, 1524 during the plague. She wrote, "You have resurrected me in You, true life who gives life to every living being."

A new film out about Hildegard von Bingen. The trailer looks good and well acted but I haven't read any reviews of it.


Vision

www.zeitgeistfilms.com/vision/

I wonder if PapaBear was at this Mass.


Diocese celebrates Bl. Marianne feast, priest incardinations

By Patrick Downes

Honolulu, Hawaii, Feb 13, 2011 / 01:24 pm (CNA).- At the mid-afternoon Mass for the feast of Blessed Marianne of Molokai Jan. 23 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Bishop Larry Silva blended a handful of themes and events into a single message – “Christ’s love takes what is degraded and makes it glorious.”

In addition to commemorating Hawaii’s second candidate for sainthood, the bishop chose the occasion to incardinate two Filipino priests into the Diocese of Honolulu.

Bishop Silva started his homily on a harsh note, followed by a hopeful tone.

“I don’t know of any time in Catholic history when there was more bad publicity about Catholic priests,” he said, using the example of the recent clergy sex-abuse crisis.

“But in spite of that, the enrollment in seminaries is rising,” he said.

He spoke of how Blessed Marianne Cope, in answering the call to serve Hawaii’s sick, faced a disease that degraded the human body and responded with a love that glorified the human spirit.

The bishop tied the Franciscan sister’s unconditional response to the day’s Gospel story about the shoreline recruitment of the first Apostles.

“She too was smitten by the same love of Jesus that caused Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave all they had,” Bishop Silva said.

Bishop Silva continued his comparisons.

“There are a lot of things causing anxiety,” he said, going down a list of troubles that included “a very beloved priest who suddenly leaves the priesthood.”

“We are degraded in so many ways, but the Lord can make us glorious,” he said.

“We have so many challenges to face and yet we can get through them,” he said. “We can take what is degrading and make it glorious because we have the light that is Christ himself.”

The homily was followed by the incardination of Father Pascual Abaya and Father Mario Raquepo, both formerly of the Philippine Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia. Each stepped up to the altar, placed his right hand on the gold-covered book of the Gospels and pledged his allegiance to his new diocese and bishop.

The priests and bishop then signed papers on the altar to make it official. Father Raquepo has been in Hawaii for 21 years, Father Abaya for five.

The bishop compared the two priests’ 5,000-mile relocation to Hawaii from their Philippine homeland to Mother Marianne’s permanent move here from Syracuse, N.Y., which is 5,000 miles to the east.

Wearing shiny gold fabric leis, several dozen Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, the new name for the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse following their recent merger with other east coast communities, sat in pews on either side of the altar.

The church was packed for the music-rich liturgy. Twenty priests and a half-dozen deacons participated. Among the laity present were two relatives of Blessed Marianne, her great, great grandniece Margaret Burnett and great, great grandnephew Dr. Paul DeMare.

Near the end of Mass, the bishop announced that the Sisters of St. Francis would be donating in May a first class relic of Blessed Marianne to the Diocese of Honolulu. The relic will be carried to each island for veneration before it is housed in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.

Tentative plans have the diocese “officially” receiving it in Honolulu on May 6. It would be taken for celebrations that evening to Topside Molokai and the next day to Kalaupapa. It would then be carried to the rest of the neighbor islands, arriving back in Honolulu for a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace the evening of May 13, in anticipation of the sixth anniversary of Mother Marianne’s beatification on May 14.

It will remain permanently enshrined in the cathedral, which is already the home for a relic of St. Damien.

The bishop also brought to the Mass a packet of material about Blessed Marianne he is mailing to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the hope it will persuade the bishops to put Blessed Marianne’s Jan. 23 feast day on the nation’s liturgical calendar.

He asked the cathedral congregation to pray for the success of the appeal.

The American bishops narrowly voted down an earlier request.

Mother Teresa as mystic and apostle of the ordinary

By John L Allen J.
National Catholic Reporter
Created Mar 05, 2011

ROME -- In the court of popular opinion, Mother Teresa – now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, after her beatification in 2003 – is regarded as a heroic Saint of the Poor, perhaps the 20th century’s most compelling example of a radical option for the world’s most vulnerable and forgotten people.

While that’s undeniably right, two of the world’s leading experts on Mother Teresa say, it also risks being reductive.

In a March 5 symposium at Rome’s Dominican-run Angelicum University, Missionaries of Charity Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk argued that Mother Teresa was also a great apostle of the ordinary, offering an approach to love focused not on grand events or geopolitical movements but one-to-one human relationships, beginning with those closest to her.

In that sense, Kolodiejchuk argued, her life is not only “admirable” but highly “imitable.”

A Canadian-born priest and General Superior of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, Kolodiejchuk is the postulator for Mother Teresa’s sainthood cause, meaning the official responsible for overseeing the effort.

Dominican Fr. Paul Murrary, meanwhile, argued that on the basis of Mother Teresa’s private writings, published only after her death, she now ranks not only as a friend of the poor, but as one of the great mystics of the Catholic tradition, with an interior life “comparable in depth and intensity to St. John of the Cross.”

Those private writings were collected as part of the beatification process, and had previously been known only to a handful of spiritual directors and church authorities. They spoke not only of mystical visions and revelations in the 1940s, but an inner darkness stretching over most of the rest of her life and which led her even to question the existence of God.

We now know that Mother Teresa’s spiritual journey, Murray said, “was not one long unbroken experience of bliss, with roses of consolation strewn along the way.” Instead, she lived with a sense of “bewildering rejection and even complete abandonment,” as “her prayers were not heard and God remained silent.”

The day on the Christian calendar that best captures Mother Teresa’s inner life, Murray said, is Good Saturday, the day of the “great silence” of God in the tomb.

Both men spoke as part of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s birth on August 26, 2010. This spring, both the Angelicum and the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome are hosting a series of lectures dedicated to various aspects of her life and thought.

In response to an NCR query, Kolodiejchuk said that the process for the canonization of Mother Teresa, meaning a formal declaration that she was a saint, is presently in a holding pattern awaiting a miracle claim sufficiently strong to submit to Vatican scrutiny.

Rules require one miracle for beatification, and another for canonization. Kolodiejchuk said reports of miracles “constantly” arrive at his office, and usually there are two or three sufficiently credible to investigate. Yet to date, he said, none has passed muster.

“We have not received any case that has the clarity of what is exactly [is] the miraculous element, proofs before and after the intercession, and the intercession – when was the prayer made, and to Mother Teresa only,” he said.

In his presentation at the Angelicum, Kolodiejchuk said Mother Teresa insisted that love has to begin with those closest to you. Changing the world, in that optic, is fundamentally about changing human hearts one by one.

“She believed the world has never needed peace more than today, but she addressed it at a different level,” Kolodiejchuk said. Her approach, he said, was based on “love and respect for each human being.”

Social disorder, in her view, was a result of a lack of respect for individual persons, Kolodiejchuk said.

You don’t have to go to slums of Calcutta, Kolodiejchuk suggested, to embrace Mother Teresa’s model of charity. Instead, he said, it’s “within the reach of every Christian in every walk of life” – beginning with those closest, including one’s spouse, children, friends, and neighbors.

“We don’t have to imitate what she did,” he said, “but we can do the ordinary things with love.”

Murray noted that a core theme in Mother Teresa’s writings, including the constitution she put together for the Missionaries of Charity, was “silence.”

Among other things, Mother Teresa once captured the value of silence in a way that many politicians, pundits, and even church leaders might do well to recall: “Silence can never be corrected.”

He recalled that half in jest, Mother Teresa used to give a “business card” to the people she met. It didn’t contain her title and contact information, however, but the core principles of her spirituality. It began, Murray noted, with the line, “The fruit of silence is prayer.”

The card went on to refer to faith, love and service, but the core practice – the one which lays the foundation for the others – is silence. In the wake of the revelation of Mother Teresa’s writings, Murray said, that reference to “silence” takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s astounding, Murray said, that Mother Teresa “never spoke, not even once,” even to those closest to her, about her inner agony. As a result, her inner spiritual drama was hidden during her lifetime.

Murray said that Mother Teresa talked about “five silences”:

Silence of the eyes
Silence of the ears
Silence of the mouth
Silence of the mind
Silence of the heart

Those five silences, Murray said, “are not limited to charity workers, those living with the poorest of the poor.” Instead, it’s a mystical path open to all.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Because St. Francis of Assisi Spent Lent Like This Once
Posted by Frank

-Feast of St. Aengus
A few days ago, I shared some stories on Christian saints who survived for long periods of time on the the Eucharist alone. Below is a similar story on how St. Francis of Assisi spent Lent one year, eating only a small portion of his provisions.

This story comes to us from The Little Flowers of St. Francis. Who wrote these stories? Who compiled them? Are they literally true? I don't know the answers to any of those questions. But I do know this: there is great freedom in poverty, to be able to drop everything and become a hermit for 40 days. And great blessings for the faithful penitent.

I have no trouble believing that St. Francis could go so long without food. Because miracles always defy the conventional wisdom. Always.

How St Francis kept Lent on an island in the Lake of Perugia,

The true servant of Christ, St. Francis, was in some sense as another Christ, given to the world for the salvation of the people; therefore God the Father willed to make him in many of his actions conformable to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. This was shown in the venerable company of his twelve companions, and in the admirable mystery of the sacred stigmata, and in his continuous fast during the holy Lent, which took place in this manner.

Once on a time, St Francis on the day of the carnival went to the Lake of Perugia, to the house of one of his disciples, where he was entertained for the night, and there he was inspired by God to pass this Lent on an island in the lake. Wherefore St Francis prayed his disciple, that for the love of Christ he would carry him across in his little boat to an island in the lake where no one inhabited, and that he would do this on the night of Ash Wednesday, so that no one might know of it. Then the other, for the great love and devotion he bore to St Francis, solicitous to grant his request, carried him to the said island, and St Francis took nothing with him but two little loaves.

And when they had arrived at the island, and his friend was about to return to his home, St Francis earnestly besought him not to reveal to any one what he should do, and not to come again till Holy Thursday. So his friend departed, and Sc Francis remained alone; and there being no habitation into which he could retire, he entered into a thicket, where many trees and shrubs had formed a hiding-place, resembling a little hut: and in this shelter he disposed himself to prayer and to the contemplation of heavenly things.

And he remained there the whole of Lent, without eating or drinking, except the half of one of those little loaves, as was witnessed by his disciple when he returned to him on Holy Thursday, who found, of the two loaves, one entire, and the half of the other. It is believed that St Francis so refrained from eating out of reverence for the fasting of the blessed Christ, who fasted forty days and forty nights without taking any material food; and thus with that half loaf he kept from himself the poison of vainglory, and after the example of Christ he fasted forty days and forty nights.

And afterwards, in this spot, where St Francis had sustained this marvellous abstinence, God granted many miracles through his merits; for which cause men began to build houses there, arid to inhabit them; and in a short time there was built a large and prosperous village, and the house for the brothers, which is still called the House of the Island. And to this day the men and women of the village have great reverence and devotion for the spot where St Francis made this Lent.

Time to 'Go to Joseph'
Recalling Jesus’ earthly father’s commitment to God’s will and his intercession on his feast day.

Share BY JOSEPH PRONECHEN 03/19/2011 Comments (11)

St. Joseph is so quiet, so humble — and often so forgotten. But, while instituting a new feast for him in 1955, Pius XII advised, “Thus, if you wish to be close to Christ, we again today repeat, ‘Go to Joseph!’”

The Pope echoed what God prefigured way back in Genesis (41:55, 57) with the patriarch when “Pharaoh directed all the Egyptians to go to Joseph and do whatever he told them. ... In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain.”

Devotion to St. Joseph was rare in the early Church but increased by the Middle Ages. The Holy Fathers from Leo XIII to Pope Benedict XVI have repeatedly called our attention to Jesus’ earthly father.

What better time to answer the call to “Go to Joseph” than on his solemnity, March 19?
Father Larry Toschi of the Oblates of St. Joseph explains the Old-New Testament parallel: Patriarch Joseph was in charge of the grain of Pharaoh, but St. Joseph was in charge of the Bread of Life: Jesus. “And the Church is the body of Christ. So he watches over all of us here,” says Father Toschi, author of St. Joseph in the New Testament (Guardian of the Redeemer Books, 1991), just as he did with Jesus.

He gives good reasons why St. Joseph is a go-to saint for our needs. “It makes sense. He’s the most powerful after Mary; he had the highest responsibility after Mary — even more than the apostles.

He was chosen by God to be the husband of the Mother of God and raise Jesus as his son. He is most intimately connected to the Incarnation. So when we want a favor, we go to him.”

Well-known saints did. Teresa of Avila declared: “I took St. Joseph for my patron and advocate, and I recommend myself unceasingly to his protection. I do not remember ever to have asked anything of him that I did not obtain.” She realized any request denied was only for her greater good.

St. Bernardine of Siena reasoned: “The Lord, who on earth honored St. Joseph as a father, will certainly not refuse him anything he asks in heaven.”

In his landmark 1889 encyclical Quamquam Pluries (On Devotion to St. Joseph), Leo XIII taught that “as Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures. … Hence it came about that the Word of God was humbly subject to Joseph.”

In St. Joseph & Daily Christian Living (Macmillan, 1961), Jesuit Father Francis Filas commented on Leo’s teaching: “Devotion to Joseph is ultimately devotion to Our Lady, because Joseph is all he is because of and through Mary. For that matter, devotion to Our Lady ultimately is devotion to Our Lord, because Mary is all she is because of and through Jesus. It is no original comment to add that ‘What God has joined together’ — Jesus, Mary and Joseph — ‘man should not tear asunder.’”

And like his wife, Joseph was first obedient to God’s will. We should Go to Joseph to help us do the same.

”Nothing was more important to him than to follow the will of God — which means he was always at the service of Jesus and Mary,” says Rick Sarkisian, Ph.D., author of Not Your Average Joe (LifeWork Press, 2004). For instance, he willingly — and at once — embarked on the flight to Egypt.

“We’re asked the same way to find God’s will, follow God’s will and fulfill God’s will,” Sarkisian points out.

Sarkisian reminds us that God often reveals his will in our daily lives: “That’s what Joseph did: not just in the giant events like the betrothal to Mary and Nativity of Jesus, but in everyday events.”

Father Toschi adds that Joseph went through many trials with faith. “So St. Joseph, who went through all these trials trusting in divine Providence, is one who can accompany us in our trials and suffering and trust in divine Providence,” he says. When we do, “God makes everything work together for the good.” We Go to Joseph to lead the way.

Father Toschi often tells fathers to Go to Joseph when they need help as a parent, with the same advice for people out of work or who are worried or upset.

In Chicago, Michael Wick has learned through devotion to St. Joseph to follow that route. Wick considers Joseph a great role model of doing God’s work in a simple way by just doing what you’re called to do.

“For me, he epitomizes someone who is attentive to God’s will and open to God’s way, because God’s ways are not always our ways,” Wick says.

Joseph can give us willingness to put aside our own agenda and fine tune it to what God reveals in the daily grind of the ordinary. That includes following the Church’s teachings, having openness to life, trying to provide for the family in these difficult economic times, and responding to the needs of spouse and children.

Wick also looks to Joseph as a protector because he protected the Holy Family at every turn.

“He’s a great example of trust in duty and as a husband and father,” Wick finds. “I turn to him seeking his inspiration and intercession.” Wick, who works for the Institute for Religious Life, an apostolate entrusted to St. Joseph by its founder, Servant of God Father John Hardon, goes to Joseph for that help as he raises his family of four children, 8 to 16, with wife Bianca.

When he makes decisions, he asks: Is that God’s will for me? Is this going to draw me closer or distract me from mission in life as husband and father? Is it going to draw the kids away from the purpose in life of getting closer to God? “I entrust to Joseph to help discern and guide me in these decisions.”

He adds, “My wife and I had to make some limits on the children’s activities so God always comes first,” as they look to model the Holy Family praying, doing things together and being together.

Benedict XVI’s patron saint is Joseph. “For the sake of Christ he experienced persecution, exile and the poverty which this entails,” noted the Pope during an address preceding St. Joseph’s feast in 2009. “He had to settle far from his native town. His only reward was to be with Christ.”

In this and every event, Joseph was the first head of the domestic church, as John Paul II would later call the family. In fact, in his 1989 encyclical Redemptoris Custos (On the Person and Mission of St. Joseph in the Life of Christ and of the Church), he stated, “It is in the Holy Family, the original ‘Church in miniature,’ that every Christian family must be reflected.”

As fathers and mothers Go to Joseph, he will give them what they need to be that Church in miniature.

Asking for his intercession should go without saying.

Father Toschi points out that one really important prayer that’s neglected is the prayer to St. Joseph after the Rosary composed by Leo XIII. Added to Quamquam Pluries, it was also recommended by John Paul II in his encyclical on St. Joseph. There’s also the Litany of St. Joseph.

Wick also suggests the Prayer of Entrustment to St. Joseph (contact IRLstaff@religiouslife.com for free copies).

And Sarkisian recommends the nine- and 30-day novenas to Joseph. By praying we “constantly remind Joseph of how much we love him and how much we trust him,” he explains. “We’re asking him to take our greatest burdens, fears, worries and present them before the throne of God as the greatest saint in heaven next to Mary. He has immense power to cover us with his cloak and surround our lives with it in a profound way.”

All we have to do is Go to Joseph.

St. Damien of Molokai's life of sacrifice remembered May 10
By Benjamin Mann
5 Comments


St. Damien of Molokai

Catholic Church
CNA STAFF, May 8, 2011 / 07:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church will remember St. Damien of Molokai on May 10. The Belgian priest sacrificed his life and health to become a spiritual father to the victims of leprosy quarantined on a Hawaiian island.

Joseph de Veuser, who later took the name Damien in religious life, was born into a farming family in the Belgian town of Tremlo in 1840. During his youth he felt a calling to become a Catholic missionary, an urge that prompted him to join the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Damien's final vows to the congregation involved a dramatic ceremony in which his superiors draped him in the cloth that would be used to cover his coffin after death. The custom was meant to symbolize the young man's solemn commitment, and his identification with Christ's own death. For Damien, the event would become more significant, as he would go on to lay down his life for the lepers of Molokai.

His superiors originally intended to send Damien's brother, a member of the same congregation, to Hawaii. But he became sick, and Damien arranged to take his place. Damien arrived in Honolulu in 1864, less than a century after Europeans had begun to establish a presence in Hawaii. He was ordained a priest the same year.

During his ninth year of the priesthood, Father Damien responded to his bishop's call for priests to serve on the leper colony of Molokai. A lack of previous exposure to leprosy, which had no treatment at the time, made the Hawaiian natives especially susceptible to the infection. Molokai became a quarantine center for the victims, who became disfigured and debilitated as the disease progressed.

The island had become a wasteland in human terms, despite its natural beauty. The leprosy victims of Molokai faced hopeless conditions and extreme deprivation, sometimes lacking not only basic palliative care but even the means of survival.

Inwardly, Fr. Damien was terrified by the prospect of contracting leprosy himself. However, he knew that he would have to set aside this fear in order to convey God's love to the lepers in the most authentic way. Other missionaries had kept the lepers at arms' length, but Fr. Damien chose to immerse himself in their common life and leave the outcome to God.

The inhabitants of Molokai saw the difference in the new priest's approach, and embraced his efforts to improve their living conditions. A strong man, accustomed to physical labor, he performed the Church's traditional works of mercy – such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and giving proper burial to the dead – in the face of suffering that others could hardly even bear to see.

Fr. Damien's work helped to raise the lepers up from their physical sufferings, while also making them aware of their worth as beloved children of God. Although he could not take away the constant presence of death in the leper colony, he could change its meaning and inspire hope. The death-sentence of leprosy could, and often did, become a painful yet redemptive path toward eternal life.

The priest's devotion to his people, and his activism on their behalf, sometimes alienated him from officials of the Hawaiian kingdom and from his religious superiors in Europe. His mission was not only fateful, but also lonely. He drew strength from Eucharistic adoration and the celebration of the Mass, but longed for another priest to arrive so that he could receive the sacrament of confession regularly.

In December of 1884, Fr. Damien discovered that he had lost all feeling in his feet. It was an early, but unmistakable sign that he had contracted leprosy. The priest knew that his time was short. He undertook to finish whatever accomplishments he could, on behalf of his fellow colony residents, before the diseased robbed him of his eyesight, speech and mobility.

Fr. Damien suffered humiliations and personal trials during his final years. An American Protestant minister accused him of scandalous behavior, based on the contemporary belief that leprosy was a sexually transmitted disease. He ran into disagreements with his religious superiors, and felt psychologically tormented by the notion that his work had been a failure.

In the end, priests of his congregation arrived to administer the last sacraments to the dying priest. During the Spring of 1889, Fr. Damien told his friends that he believed it was God's will for him to spend the upcoming Easter not on Molokai, but in heaven. He died of leprosy during Holy Week, on April 15, 1889.

St. Damien of Molokai was beatified in 1995. Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in 2009.

US nun's cause moves forward with initial ruling on second miracle

By Patrick Downes
Catholic News Service
July 1, 2011

HONOLULU (CNS) -- The sainthood cause of Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai has taken a significant step forward with a Vatican medical board ruling in favor of a miracle attributed to her intercession.

According to a news release from her religious community, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Syracuse, N.Y., the seven physicians at the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes declared there is no medical explanation for the cure of a woman who had been suffering from an allegedly irreversible fatal condition.

"The board concluded the woman's healing was inexplicable according to available medical knowledge. The doctors on the case expected her to die and were amazed scientifically at her survival," the release said.

No other details about the case have been released.

The Sisters of St. Francis received the news from Msgr. Robert J. Sarno, an American priest at the congregation who has been working with the postulator of Mother Marianne's cause, Father Ernesto Piacentini, in the written presentation of the miracle case at the Vatican.

The miracle, approved June 16 by the medical board, still must pass two more Vatican examinations before it is presented to the pope for final approval for canonization. The first is by a board of theologians who will determine if the healing was the result of prayer for Mother Marianne's intercession, and then by a committee of cardinals and bishops who will examine the entire case and give a final verdict.

Sister Patricia Burkard, general minister of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, said that the medical board's decision is a "reason to rejoice" for her religious order, for her devotees, and for "all who unselfishly care for others and do acts of charity known only to God."

"Mother Marianne was the human face of the Gospel's mandate to care for the hungry, the sick and the impoverished," Sister Patricia said. "We pray for success in the case so that her inspirational life will be better known throughout the world. She is a model for us all."

Sister Francis Regis Hadano, regional administrator for the Sisters of St. Francis in Hawaii, said her community is "delighted" with the Vatican ruling.

"We Franciscan Sisters are very pleased and certainly excited about the advancement in the miracle case," she said in an email to the Hawaii Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Honolulu Diocese. "We are hopeful the theologians will meet sometime later this year. There is much work to be done in preparation for this session so prayer is needed."

"We thank all who pray specially for Blessed Marianne to be canonized," she said.

This is the second miracle attributed to Blessed Marianne's intercession to go through the Vatican approval process.

The first miracle, required for her beatification, was the medically unexplainable recovery of a New York girl dying from multiple organ failure after prayers were said to Mother Marianne. It was approved by the medical board Jan. 29, 2004. The board of theologians gave its approval six months later, on July 15. On Dec. 20, Pope John Paul II affirmed the case, making Mother Marianne eligible for beatification. She was beatified in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 14, 2005.

Mother Marianne, as the head of her religious community in Syracuse, led the first group of Franciscan sisters to the Hawaiian Islands in 1883 to establish a system of nursing care for leprosy patients. She was the only one of 50 religious superiors in the United States, Canada and Europe who were asked for help to accept the challenge.

Once in Hawaii, she relinquished her leadership position in Syracuse to lead her mission for 35 years, five in Honolulu and the remainder on Molokai.

When she died in Kalaupapa in 1918, a Honolulu newspaper wrote: "Seldom has the opportunity come to a woman to devote every hour of 30 years to the mothering of people isolated by law from the rest of the world. She risked her own life in all that time, faced everything with unflinching courage and smiled sweetly through it all."

Rebuild My Church... and Bless the Animals
On this feast of the beloved Poverello of Assisi, the following passage from Bonaventure's Life of Francis is worth recalling:
“One day when Francis went out to meditate in the fields he was passing by the church of San Damiano which was threatening to collapse because of extreme age. Inspired by the Spirit, he went inside to pray.

Kneeling before an image of the Crucified, he was filled with great fervor and consolation as he prayed. While his tear-filled eyes were gazing at the Lord's cross, he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times: 'Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.'

Trembling with fear, Francis was amazed at the sound of this astonishing voice, since he was alone in the church; and as he received in his heart the power of the divine words, he fell into a state of ecstasy. Returning finally to his senses, he prepared to put his whole heart into obeying the command he had received.

He began zealously to repair the church materially, although the principle intention of the words referred to that Church which Christ purchased with his own blood, as the Holy Spirit afterward made him realize....”
For the record, the moment recounted above took place in 1204... yet then as now, the call of the Cross remains the challenge of our time. So as the work continues, on another St Francis' Day and always, may we all ever just keep on, keep trying and -- flaws, faults, warts and all -- keep building.
Most High, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me true faith,
certain hope and perfect charity,
sense and knowledge,
that I may carry out, Lord,
Your holy and true command.
* * *
Meanwhile, lest anyone here likes their 4 October a bit, er, furrier, while this feast is already beyond popular for the customary Blessings of Animals -- and, out in Southern California, another year of a Catholic-led "Blessing of the Waves" (because, hey, they're creation, too) -- did you know that, back in 1931, St Francis' Day was formally adopted as World Animal Day?

Either way, lest anyone hasn't had a nearby Pet Blessing and would like taking part, the formal Rite for the Blessing of Animals can be done by anyone, anywhere... here are the core prayers:
[Option 1] O God, the author and giver of every gift, animals also are part of the way you provide help for our needs and labors. We pray (through the intercession of Saint Francis) that you will make available for our use the things we need to maintain a decent human life. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

[Option 2] O God, you have done all things wisely; in your goodness you have made us in your image and given us care over other living things. Reach out with your right hand and grant that these animals may serve our needs and that your bounty in the resources of this life may move us to seek more confidently the goal of eternal life. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
The text likewise features this sweet dismissal: "May God, who created the animals of this earth as a help to us, continue to protect and sustain us with the grace his blessing brings, now and for ever."

Thank you, Papabear!!! I'm asking Saint Francis to intercede for my beloved cat, Sixpence and my Guardian Angel too. Although she is suffering from irreversible kidney failure, Sixpence is doing well on her medication and special diet and had a good report from the vet last week. Thank you, Saint Francis!

Pope approves miracles of Blesseds Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha

Vatican City, Dec 19, 2011 / 07:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI formally recognized miracles attributed to Bl. Marianne Cope and Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha on Dec. 19, clearing the way for both women to be canonized.

The two women, who both lived in the United States, were among numerous individuals whose sainthood causes were advanced by decrees authorized by Pope Benedict XVI on Monday.

Sister Grace Anne Dillenschneider, vice postulator for the Cause for the Diocese of Syracuse, told CNA on Dec. 19 that the date for Bl. Cope’s canonization has not yet been confirmed.

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints had already approved Bl. Cope’s second official miracle, which involved the medical recovery of a woman in Syracuse who was cured of a fatal and irreversible health condition.

Born in western Germany in 1838, Bl. Marianne Cope entered religious life in Syracuse, N.Y., where she served as a teacher and principal and established two hospitals before traveling to Hawaii, where she spent several years caring for lepers.

She died in 1918 and was beatified in 2005.

Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha, known as "the Lily of the Mohawks," was born in 1656 in upstate New York.

Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother was an Algonquin who was raised Catholic.

A smallpox epidemic killed both of her parents and left her with poor eyesight and a badly disfigured face at a young age.

Despite objections from her relatives, she was baptized at age 20, after meeting several Catholic priests.

An outcast from her community, Bl. Tekakwitha lived a life of deep prayer, with a strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

She died in 1680 at the age of 24. Witnesses said that the scars on her face disappeared after her death.

Bl. Tekakwitha was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980, the first Native American to be declared blessed.

On Dec. 19, Pope Benedict also authorized promulgations recognizing miracles attributed to the intercession of 10 other individuals, allowing them to move forward towards beatification or canonization.

In addition, he recognized the martyrdom of more than 60 individuals, including priests, religious and laymen, who can now move forward in the process towards beatification.

The Pope also approved decrees recognizing seven individuals as having lived out heroic virtue and being venerable. These individuals will each need a miracle attributed to their intercession before they can be beatified.

Case of Boys Town founder shows long road to making a saint

By Jen Christensen,
CNN
March 9, 2012

Surrounded by TV cameras and an excited crowd, the archbishop of Omaha, Nebraska, taped a notice to the doors of St. Cecilia’s Church last week announcing to the world that his archdiocese was launching a formal process to try to elevate one of its most famous members to Catholicism’s highest honor.

Archbishop George Lucas wants the Vatican to recognize Father Edward J. Flanagan as a saint.

As the founder of Boys Town – the famous Nebraska community for at-risk kids – Flanagan radically transformed how people handle troubled youth. He is known for the saying, “There are no bad boys. There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.”

But just because someone does good doesn’t entitle that person to be a saint, at least in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Many faiths have their saints, but attaining sainthood may be hardest in the Catholic Church.

By posting a notice about Flanagan, the Omaha archdiocese is embarking on a complicated legal, scientific and surprisingly expensive journey that could take over 100 years to accomplish – if sainthood is achieved at all.

“To be recognized as a saint these days, it may cost upwards of $1 million,” said Steven Wolf, the lead volunteer and president of the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion. “You essentially need it to pay for a good lawyer and an expensive multi-media campaign.”

Wolf’s organization grew out of a Boys Town alumni group that that came together some 13 years ago to make Flanagan’s case. The group has held monthly prayer meetings at Flanagan's tomb and leads pilgrimages to Boys Town to speak about his life and accomplishments.

“You need splashy videos, a social media blitz, a website, prayer cards and podcasts, not to mention we need to find a couple of miracles,” Wolf said about the sainthood process. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

In the early days of the church, achieving sainthood was easier.

“Until the 13th century, beatification is a local matter and the devotion is the most significant part of the process,” said church historian Alberto Melloni.

If enough people thought you were a saint and prayed to you after your death, you became a saint. But that informal process left room for less-than-holy politicking and bribery on behalf of wannabe saints.

Without much vetting, even some fictional characters became saints, including St. Christopher, who for centuries was revered as the patron saint of travelers. In 1969, the Catholic Church removed his saint day from its calendar because it couldn’t prove he ever existed.

To avoid more St. Christophers, the church has over the years set down much more rigid rules for sainthood.

Flanagan, who died in 1948, easily met the first criterion for sainthood: being dead for at least five years.

The next steps are more challenging. There needs to be spontaneous public support for someone to be placed in the canon of saints – a step known as canonization. Wolf says Flanagan’s candidacy has support in spades.

“Right now, we can’t really get our arms around how many people are involved in praying for Father Flanagan’s intercession,” he said. “It’s not like you get a membership card.”

But since launching a website in 2004 dedicated to making Flanagan a saint, Wolf’s group has heard from people in 36 states and nine countries seeking Flanagan’s help in finding a job, curing a relative’s cancer or saving an aunt who suffered an aneurysm.

After spontaneous public support for a sainthood candidate is demonstrated, the bishop of the diocese where the candidate died needs to open a formal investigation.

But Flanagan didn’t die in Omaha, where he did most of his work. He died of a heart attack while on a mission to Berlin on behalf of President Harry Truman, who had sent Flanagan to address the orphan crisis caused by World War II.

Because Flanagan’s main base of support is in Omaha, advocates for his cause had to petition the Vatican to make an exception to the rule to allow them to lead the sainthood effort.

The Vatican granted the rule change, clearing the way for the next step: The Omaha archdiocese must assemble a tribunal to gather evidence that Flanagan was truly holy.

At a Mass at the Immaculate Conception Church at Boys Town this month, Flanagan will be named a “servant of God” and Lucas will set up the tribunal, which will interview witnesses about Flanagan’s virtue.

If the tribunal rules in his favor, it will pass witness testimony – along with every piece of material written by Flanagan it can collect – to the Vatican. There, a lawyer called a postulator organizes the evidence and presents it in what the church calls a positio to the Congregation for the Cause of Saints.

Flanagan’s group has already hired its postulator, a Rome-based lawyer who has become known in the Italian press as “the saint maker.” The lawyer, Andrea Ambrosi, says that 400 current saints have him to thank – in part, at least – for the honor. And he has a caseload of 30 more aspiring saints.

Wolf hired Ambrosi to give Flanagan his best shot at sainthood. “We know of a cause in Michigan that’s been stuck for 60 years, and they’ve been through seven postulators,” Wolf said. “There are not a lot of people doing this sort of thing effectively. If you have any misstep you could be stuck forever.”

Once Ambrosi assembles Flanagan’s positio, nine Catholic theologians examine the dossier. A majority vote among them advances the cause to Pope Benedict XVI, who can designate Flanagan as “venerable.”

But the church also requires two miracles from the prospective saint after his or her death. Peter Gumpel, who scrutinized hundreds of cases of saints in his nearly 50 years as a “devil’s advocate,” fact-checking positios, explains that miracles essentially seal the deal.

“A miracle is some extraordinary fact, especially in the medical field – a cure that nobody expected and suddenly against all expectations this person is cured,” he said. “Miracles are still required because the church has to be absolutely sure what we are doing in canonizing someone conforms to the will of God. To do this, we ask for a sign from God.”

The public campaign for Flanagan has only just started, but Wolf says six people have contacted him to say they believe they’ve experienced a miracle by praying for Flanagan’s intercession.

Wolf hopes at least one of the reported miracles will stand up to church scrutiny. Several local doctors will have to testify that there is no medical explanation for someone’s cure. The person who has been cured will have to testify, too.

That testimony is scrutinized by top doctors and scientists hired by the Vatican – and examined by the pope – before it can be considered a miracle. At that point, a sainthood candidate is beatified. That’s what happened to Pope John Paul II last year, after the Vatican ruled that the case of a French nun who prayed to him and was cured of her Parkinson’s disease was a bona fide miracle.

Then the whole miracle confirmation process begins again, with a second miracle that has transpired since beatification.

“Yes, it is a lot of work. Yes, it is expensive, but it is worth it,” Wolf said. The tribunal, the lawyer in Rome, and the travel required to press Flanagan’s case all cost money.

But Wolf argues that the more people who know about Flanagan’s life and work, the more who will be helped by the priest, as he was.

Wolf didn’t know Flanagan personally, but he is a 1980 graduate of Boys Town. Going there, he says, changed his life.

“Before Boys Town, I spent time in runaway shelters,” he said. “I was locked up in juvenile detention. I didn’t have the best environment growing up,” he said. “But when I got to Boys Town, things changed.”

Today, Wolf helps run a public affairs consulting firm and has five daughters.

“Father Flanagan gave a damn about people like me – kids most people were ready to write off as losers – and it matters,” he said. “That man is a saint. I’ve been won over. I know others will be, too.”