Via Courtney Mares
Vatican Town, Oct 20, 2024 / 11:00 am
Pope Francis canonized 14 new saints on Sunday, together with a father of 8 and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to surrender their religion and convert to Islam.
In a Mass in St. Peter’s Sq. on Oct. 20, the pope declared 3 nineteenth-century founders of non secular orders and the 11 “Martyrs of Damascus” as saints to be honored by means of the worldwide Catholic Church, commending their lives of sacrifice, missionary zeal, and repair to the Church.
“Those new saints lived Jesus’ means: carrier,” Pope Francis stated. “They made themselves servants in their brothers and sisters, ingenious in doing just right, steadfast in difficulties, and beneficiant to the tip.”
Pope Francis speaks at a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints in St. Peter’s Sq. on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit score: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
The newly canonized come with St. Giuseppe Allamano, a diocesan priest from Italy who based the Consolata missionary orders, and St. Marie-Léonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal recognized for founding an order devoted to the carrier of monks.
Additionally a few of the saints are St. Elena Guerra, hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” and St. Manuel Ruiz López and his seven Franciscan partners, all martyred in Damascus in 1860 for refusing to surrender their Christian religion.
The overall 3 canonized are siblings, Sts. Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, lay Maronite Catholics martyred in Syria at the side of the Franciscans.
1000’s of pilgrims prayed the Litany of the Saints in combination in St. Peter’s Sq. ahead of Pope Francis declared the 14 as enrolled a few of the saints “for the honour of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic religion and the rise of the Christian lifestyles, by means of the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.”
“We expectantly ask for his or her intercession in order that we can also apply Christ, apply him in carrier and change into witnesses of hope for the arena,” the pope stated.
In his homily, Pope Francis highlighted how carrier embodied the lives of each and every of the brand new saints. “After we learn how to serve,” he stated, “our each and every gesture of consideration and care, each and every expression of tenderness, each and every paintings of mercy turns into a mirrored image of God’s love. And so we proceed Jesus’ paintings on the earth.”
The Gospel for the Mass was once chanted in Greek along with Latin in honor of the 11 Martyrs of Damascus.
Pilgrims collect in St. Peter’s Sq. for a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit score: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Father Marwan Dadas, a Franciscan friar from Jerusalem, was once amongst those that attended the canonization. He stated that the testimony of the martyrs from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land is particularly significant to people who find themselves struggling because of the continuing warfare and violence within the area nowadays.
“It is a just right message to mention that even supposing we have now demanding situations — and it sort of feels we have now dying frequently — we nonetheless have the sunshine of God this is serving to us and guiding us via those tough classes,” Dadas advised CNA.
“It is a very powerful message for me, and I’m hoping it is going to be the message for the entire folks of the Holy Land, no longer most effective the Holy Land, however for everyone. This can be a message from God announcing that He’s all the time with us.”
St. Giuseppe Allamano: A missionary center
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Probably the most celebrated figures a few of the new saints is St. Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926), an Italian diocesan priest who based the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Allamano, although he spent his whole lifestyles in Italy, left a world legacy by means of coaching missionaries who carried the Gospel to faraway corners of Africa, Asia, and South The usa.
Allamano advised the missionaries within the order he based in northern Italy in 1901 that they had to be “first saints, then missionaries.”
The scientific miracle that resulted in Allamano’s canonization concerned the therapeutic of a person who was once attacked by means of a jaguar within the Amazon rainforest. In 1996, a person named Sorino Yanomami, a member of the indigenous Yanomami tribe within the Amazon, was once mauled by means of a jaguar and left with life-threatening accidents.
As medical doctors handled his cranium fractures, Consolata missionaries prayed within the medical institution with a relic of Allamano, searching for his intercession. Miraculously, Yanomami recovered with none long-term injury, in keeping with the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Reasons of Saints.
Allamano, whose religious director was once St. John Bosco, emphasised the significance of holiness in priestly lifestyles, telling his monks, “You will have to no longer most effective be holy, however extremely holy.” His affect has continued throughout the orders he based, provide nowadays in 30 nations around the globe.
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis: “Humble a few of the humble”
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912), a Canadian non secular sister, additionally took her position a few of the new saints. She based the Little Sisters of the Holy Circle of relatives, an order whose spirituality and charism is the improve of monks via each prayer and by means of caring for the cooking, cleansing, and laundry in rectories in “humble and completely happy carrier” in imitation of “Christ the Servant.”
Throughout his homily, Pope Francis praised Paradis’ religion and underlined that “those that apply Christ, in the event that they want to be nice, will have to serve by means of finding out from Him” who made himself “a servant to achieve everybody together with his love.”
Born within the Acadian area of Quebec, Paradis additionally spent 8 years in New York serving within the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage within the 1860s and taught French at St. Mary’s Academy in Indiana, ahead of founding her non secular order in New Brunswick, Canada.
Paradis’ canonization was once supported by means of the miraculous therapeutic of a new child in Canada, attributed to her intercession.
St. Elena Guerra: An “apostle of the Holy Spirit”
A number of the canonized was once St. Elena Guerra (1835–1914), recognized for her ardent devotion to the Holy Spirit. Guerra, who based the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, was once instrumental in selling the first-ever novena to the Holy Spirit below Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Her writings and non secular management impressed many, together with St. Gemma Galgani, a mystic and saint who was once her scholar.
For a lot of her 20s, Guerra was once bedridden with a major sickness, a problem that became out to be transformational for her as she devoted herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the decision to consecrate herself to God all the way through a pilgrimage to Rome together with her father after her restoration and went directly to shape the non secular neighborhood devoted to schooling.
Throughout her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, together with a Holy Spirit Chaplet, asking the Lord to “ship forth your spirit and renew the arena.
“Pentecost isn’t over,” Guerra wrote. “In reality, it’s regularly happening in each and every time and in each and every position, for the reason that Holy Spirit desired to offer himself to all males and all who need him can all the time obtain him, so we wouldn’t have to envy the apostles and the 1st believers; we most effective need to dispose ourselves like them to obtain him neatly, and he’s going to come to us as he did to them.”
The Martyrs of Damascus: Brave witnesses of religion
The solemnity of the rite was once heightened as Pope Francis canonized the Martyrs of Damascus, a bunch of eleven males killed in 1860 for refusing to surrender their Christian religion and convert to Islam. The martyrs, together with 8 Franciscan friars and 3 laymen, had been attacked in a church within the Christian quarter of Damascus all the way through a wave of non secular violence.
The canonized Franciscan friars come with six monks and two professed non secular — all missionaries from Spain except for for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was once from Salzburg, Austria.
Franciscan Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández had been all declared saints.
The 3 laymen had been brothers — Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphael Massabki — recognized for his or her deep piety and devotion to the Christian religion. Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was once a father of 8 youngsters. Mooti was once a father of 5 who visited the Church of St. Paul day-to-day for prayer and to show catechism courses. The youngest brother, Raphael, was once unmarried and was once recognized to spend lengthy classes of time praying within the church and serving to the friars.
Consistent with witnesses, the brothers had been introduced the danger to reside in the event that they renounced their religion, however they refused. “We’re Christians, and we need to reside and die as Christians,” Francis Massabki reportedly stated. All 11 had been brutally killed that evening, some beheaded, others stabbed to dying.
“They remained trustworthy servants,” Pope Francis stated. “[They] served in martyrdom and in pleasure.”
A world party
The canonization rite was once attended by means of pilgrims from world wide, together with Catholics from Kenya, Canada, Uganda, Spain, Italy, and the Heart East. Greater than 1,000 individuals of the Consolata order traveled to Rome to witness the canonization in their founder.
And bagpipers from Galicia in northern Spain performed conventional tune on the finish of the Mass to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized a few of the Damascus martyrs.
Bagpipers play to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized a few of the Damascus martyrs on the Vatican on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit score: Courtney Mares
“I thank all of you who’ve come to honor the brand new saints,” Pope Francis stated. “I greet the cardinals, the bishops, the consecrated women and men, particularly the Friars Minor and the Maronite trustworthy, the Consolata Missionaries, the Little Sisters of the Holy Circle of relatives and the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, in addition to the opposite teams of pilgrims who’ve come from more than a few puts.”
Pope Francis led the gang within the Angelus prayer on the finish of the Mass and requested folks to hope specifically for the reward of peace for “populations who’re struggling on account of warfare – tormented Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, tormented Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and the entire others.”
The pope additionally greeted a bunch of Ugandan pilgrims who traveled from Rome to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs and suggested folks to hope for missionaries on International Undertaking Sunday.
“Allow us to improve, with our prayer and our support, the entire missionaries who, regularly at nice sacrifice, carry the shining proclamation of the Gospel to each and every a part of the arena,” he stated.
“Would possibly the Virgin Mary lend a hand us to be like her and just like the Saints brave and completely happy witnesses of the Gospel.”
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic Information Company. A graduate of Harvard College, she has reported from information bureaus on 3 continents and was once awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her paintings with North Korean refugees. She is the creator of “Blessed Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Shoes” (Ignatius, 2023),
