On this day in 1978, the Cardinals elected Cardinal Albino Luciani, 65, as the Pope to follow Pope Paul VI who died on August 6.
Luciani took the name John Paul and died 33 days later. Luciani had been the Patriarch of Venice.
On this day in 2002 the diocesan phase studying the possible cause for canonization was opened. It was closed in 2006 and the Roman phase opened in 2009. A miracle is being proposed for the Pope’s cause.
Eternal Memory.
John Paul I, pray for us.
The Catholic News Agency ran an article on Wednesday by Andrea Gagliarduccui, “Pope Francis thinking about declaring Pius XII a saint.” The idea of making Pius a saint more quickly has more than a passing interest for me: I think the Venerable Servant of God Pope Pius XII was a holy man and he ought to be made at least a blessed, but I will accept sainthood, too. The work he did to save the Jews from death contribute to us understanding his life in Grace.
It is being posited that Pope Francis may dispense with the beatification process and the rigorous examination of miracles and push Pius to sainthood. He recently decided to exempt Blessed John XXIII ahead of some of the sainthood process.
As the author notes, the study concerning Pius’s sanctity is near completion and there are several miracles attributed to Pius’ intercession.
Pius was the Roman Pontiff from 1939-1958.
Today’s the anniversary of death (1937) of the Venerable Servant of God Antonietta Meo. She is known by many in Rome as Nennolina. Meo is a six year old candidate for sainthood, indeed a very young girl apparently was in love with Jesus and united her suffering (from cancer) to that of the Lord’s.
Actually I had forgotten about Nennolina’s anniversary until I saw it noted on a “friend’s page” on Facebook.
When I lived for a month with the Cistercians at Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme I came to know about this young sainthood candidate. I seem to recall that a family in Michigan and in Indiana was attributing a miracle through Meo’s intercession. Since I’ve not been following the cause, I don’t the state of her sainthood process except that Benedict XVI recognized her heroic virtues in 2007.
Antonietta Meo was a student of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Rome.
Nennolina is buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, the same place where the relics of the Holy Passion are located. She was baptized in this church and spent time in prayer there.
Read her letters.
Several weeks ago word was received that the theologians approved of the findings they were presented on a miracle studied to support Blessed John Paul’s cause of canonization. A second miracle is required for the canonization process to certify that the person being presented for canonization is authentic; the person doesn’t create the miracle but it is through that person’s intercession before God asking Him for the favor.
I don’t hide the fact that I believe Dorothy Day is a very reasonable and attractive candidate for the Church to canonize. Following Pope John Paul’s insistence that we need more contemporary saints from among the laity, we have a good model in Day. Several times in the past years I have posted articles on Dorothy Day (+1980) and I am happy to do so again today. My enthusiasm has less to do with Day’s social activism –even though at one time the Catholic Worker Houses were more Catholic and Benedictine-like– as it does with her accepting the truth of Jesus Christ as Messiah, her eventual conversion to Catholicism and her being a Benedictine Oblate.
Oblation as a lay woman she was first connected with the Benedictine monks of Portsmouth Abbey before she settled her Oblation to St Procopius Abbey (outside Chicago). However, there is a difference of opinion on where Day’s Oblation was first offered, Portsmouth or Procopius. The historians have done some fact checking, so the matter is closed.
Saints in Connecticut. Relics point to Jesus Christ.
Litchfield County Times’ reporter Tom Breen published his “Catholic Retreat Near Mystic Features Severed Arm of Medieval Saint” on May 25, 2013. He writes on the first class relic of Saint Edmund of Canterbury, a renowned English archbishop, in a Mystic, CT, retreat house by the same name.
The infrastructure of holiness rests, in part, with the witness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Saints, for those who are Catholic, are men and women who know they are sinners, who have been forgiven, and who know what it means to live the sacred Scriptures. Specifically, they point to Christ as Messiah and say that it is in fact possible for all of us to be saints.
The Church has venerated, not worshiped saints and their relics. As reliable witnesses, the saints to this day point to Jesus. By the second century Christians would pray in the places where the martyrs were buried and/or where they were killed. A human contact is necessary for all of us.
The practice of offering Mass upon the tombs of the saints became normal; when the Christian community expanded, the practice of praying with the saints followed. Devotion ensued and Connecticut has a verifiable saint to honor.
Saint Edmund of Canterbury’s feast day is November 16.
Continue reading Connecticut retreat house has a saint’s severed arm
A while ago I mentioned the sainthood study of the 17th century Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci being opened by Diocese of Macerata. The diocesan phase officially closed on May 10th and the findings were sent to the Congregation for Saints at the Holy See.
The process of becoming a saint, if you are not a John Paul II or a Mother Terese can take some time. When I heard the news of the completion of US side of Rose Hawthorne’s cause for canonization was made, the other day from a Dominican priest friend, a “praise God” rang out! The last significant ecclesial judgement made on the sanctity of Rose Hawthorne was in 2003 when she was declared to be a Servant of God.
Servant of God Rose Hawthorne (1851-1926), was founder of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, led unusual life as a wife, mother, and convert. Rose was born in Lenox, MA, and died in Hawthorne, NY. In religion she is known as Mother Mary Alphonsa, OP. Rose worked to comfort the poor dying of cancer. The diocesan phase for cause of canonization was opened by Cardinal Edward Michael Egan. Rose Hawthorne was declared Servant of God on February 4, 2003. Father Gabriel B. O’Donnell, OP, is the postulator. On 9 April, the necessary documentation signed by the archbishop of New York, Timothy Cardinal Dolan. On 20 April 2013 Father O’Donnell will be delivering this phase concerning Rose’ heroic virtue and the writing of the historical report to Rome’s Congregation of Saints. For more info: www.hawthorne-dominicans.org
The Catholic New York reports the story.
Hawthorne is one 10 people with connections in the State of New York who are being considered for sainthood.
Servant of God Father Edward Flanagan (1886-1948) was a native of County Roscommon, Ireland, on July 13, 1886 he was born the 8th of 11 children of John and Nora Flanagan. In 1904, he came to the United States. Flanagan first studied for the priesthood at Dunwoodie Seminary with the intention of being a priest of the Archdiocese of New York; illness prevented his further studies and he eventually moved with his family to Omaha. There he was accepted as a seminarian and sent to Rome’s Capranica College, with classes at the Gregorian University but finished his studies in Innsbruck’s Royal Imperial Leopold Francis University. Flanagan’s ordination to the priesthood happened on July 26, 1912 and he offered his first Mass in St. Ignatius Church, Innsbruck, Austria. He was a priest for the Diocese of Omaha. Father Flanagan was assigned Saint Patrick’s Church, O’Neill, NE. In March 1913, he was appointed Assistant Pastor to Saint Patrick Catholic Church in Omaha. His natural qualities of generosity to the poor and marginalized and prayer were made manifest.
With the permission of Bishop Jeremiah Harty, on December 12, 1917, Father Flanagan opened his first Boys’ Home in a run-down Victorian mansion in downtown Omaha. In his lifetime Father Flanagan helped more than 6,000 boys. During a tour of Europe, he fell ill and died of a heart attack in Berlin, Germany, on May 15, 1948. At the request of the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion (FFLSD), Archbishop George Lucas, of the Archdiocese of Omaha has accepted responsibility for the beatification process. On March 17, 2012, Lucas formally opened the cause of canonization at a service of prayer at Immaculate Conception Church (Boys Town), bestowing the title of “Servant of God” upon Father Flanagan. Dr. Andrei Ambrosi is the Postulator for the cause.
More information may be read here.
Father Joseph Walijewski (1924-2006), a missionary to Latin America, is now part of a long list of Americans who are being studied by the Church for possible sainthood.
Father Walijewski’s cause for beatification opened by Bishop William P. Callahan, bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse, WI, March 19, 2013. Dr. Andrea Ambrosi will be the postulator. Walijewski was born to poor Polish immigrant parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 15, 1924; ordained priest for the Diocese of La Crosse in April 1950; and began missionary work in Bolivia in 1956; he died on April 11, 2006, suffering pneumonia and acute leukemia. Father Joseph also served in Ecuador and Peru. While in Peru, he helped organize breakfast stations that fed 8,000 children per day where he founded in 1987 the Lima orphanage Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II, the House of John Paul II.