Pope Canonizes Damien and Four Others
by: John Thavis
VATICAN CITY (CNS)—Calling them "shining examples" of Christian
love, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed five new saints, including Father
Damien de Veuster, the 19th-century Belgian missionary who ministered
to people with leprosy in Hawaii before dying of the disease.
At a Mass Oct. 11 overflowing with pilgrims from around the
world, the pope also canonized Sister Jeanne Jugan, a French nun whose
Little Sisters of the Poor continue to assist the elderly in the United
States and more than 30 other countries.
After brief biographies of the five were read aloud, the pope
pronounced a solemn decree of canonization and proclaimed them models
of holiness for the whole church. Relics of the new saints were placed
on the altar as St. Peter's Basilica was filled with a sung "Alleluia."
In his homily, the pope said the newly canonized had typified
the Christian vocation of radical conversion and self-sacrifice made
"with no thought of human calculation and advantage."
"Their perfection, in the logic of the faith that is sometimes
humanly incomprehensible, consists in no longer placing themselves at
the center, but in choosing to go against the current by living
according to the Gospel," he said.
Thousands of U.S. pilgrims came to Rome for the canonization,
including a delegation of leprosy patients and their caregivers from
Hawaii, where St. Damien worked and died, and residents from homes for
the aged run by Little Sisters of the Poor across the United States.
The basilica was filled beyond capacity, and an estimated
40,000 people watched the liturgy on giant TV screens in St. Peter's
Square. The Mass was moved inside at the last minute because of a
threat of rain, but blue skies and sunshine prevailed throughout the
liturgy.
St. Damien, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts
of Jesus and Mary, worked on the island of Hawaii for eight years
before volunteering in 1873 to work at a leprosy colony on Molokai,
where he served as pastor, doctor and counselor to some 800 patients.
In 1884 he contracted leprosy but, refusing to leave the island for
treatment, continued to work until the month before his death at age 49
in 1889.
The pope said St. Damien "felt at home" as "a leper with the lepers" during the final years of his life.
"He invites us to open our eyes toward the `leprosies' that
disfigure the humanity of our brothers and sisters and that today still
call, more than for our generosity, for the charity of our serving
presence," he said.
The procession to place St. Damien's relics on the altar
included Hawaii resident Audrey Toguchi, 81, whose cure from cancer was
attributed to the miraculous intercession of St. Damien, as well as her
doctor and a leprosy patient from Hawaii.
St. Damien has been considered an intercessor for patients with
leprosy and, more recently, HIV and AIDS. The Vatican's liturgical
program for the canonization described St. Damien as a voice for
"rejected people of all kinds: the incurably ill (victims of AIDS or
other diseases), abandoned children, disoriented youths, exploited
women, neglected elderly people and oppressed minorities."
In his homily, the pope said that in view of her service to the
elderly, St. Jeanne Jugan was "a beacon" for modern societies, which
"have still to rediscover the unique place and contribution of this
period of life." She was so effective with the aged because she
recognized in them the person of Christ, he said.
"Her charism is still relevant, because so many older people
suffer from fears and solitude, having sometimes been abandoned even by
their families," he said.
Born in northern France in 1792, St. Jeanne formed a small
prayer community and, in 1839, brought home a sick and blind elderly
widow, giving the woman her own bed. Caring for the abandoned elderly
became the primary focus of her religious order, and remains so today
for the approximately 2,700 Little Sisters of the Poor.
The pope noted that St. Jeanne had herself accepted "obscurity
and deprivation" in her later years, a reference to the fact that she
was removed as superior of her religious order and sent out to beg on
behalf of the poor. She died in 1879, and today the Little Sisters
serve more than 13,000 elderly residents in 202 homes around the world.
The other new saints included a Pole and two Spaniards:
- St. Zygmunt Felinski, a former archbishop of Warsaw, Poland,
and founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary. Born in
1822 near Volinia, which today is in Ukraine, he was deported to Russia
and, after being freed, worked among the poor farmers of Ukraine and
Poland, founding schools for rural children. He died in 1895, and today
the church sees him as an intercessor for all who are persecuted.
- St. Francisco Coll Guitart, a Spanish Dominican priest who
founded the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation
of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the 19th century. He was famed for his
evangelical preaching, aimed especially at Catholics who had lapsed
from the practice of the faith. He made great use of the rosary,
initiating the "perpetual rosary" in parts of Spain, in which thousands
of people took part. His popular missions continued until his death in
1875 at the age of 62.
- St. Rafael Arnaiz Baron, a 20th-century Spanish Trappist
brother known for his humility and life of prayer. As a student of
architecture in the 1930s, he suddenly broke off his training to enter
the contemplative life. Soon after he was stricken with a serious form
of diabetes. He died in 1938 at age 27, and his prayerful devotion and
his spiritual writings led people to describe him as a great mystic.
At the end of the Mass, the pope spoke from the steps of the
basilica to pilgrims who filled the square. They cheered, applauded and
waved banners as each of the saints was named. Addressing
English-speaking people, the pope said he hoped the new saints would
"inspire you by the example of their holy lives."
The pope also greeted a group of Japanese survivors of the
nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and said: "I pray that the
world may never again witness such mass destruction of innocent human
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