The 95-cent stamp features a wrinkled but radiant Mother Teresa smiling in her blue-trimmed, white sari.

Overlaid on the design by Patrizio Daniele is another image of her holding the hand of a small child.

"Frail but equally determined in her vocation, Mother Teresa loved God and the church with great strength, simplicity and extraordinary humility, glorifying with her life the dignity of a most humble service," said the brochure announcing the stamp's release.

The Vatican Philatelic and Numismatic Office announced the stamp's release Aug. 5 and distributed initial images of it.

It will print and sell a maximum of 150,000 sheets of 10 stamps each.

It will be released Sept. 2, two days before Pope Francis officially declares her a saint.

The Vatican post office is considering a special postmark for the day of the beatification.

Source

• catholicnews.com
• cruxnow.com
• Image: image.catholicnews.com

Versus (1860-1892) was a member of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

He may now be called Venerable Henri Baptiste Stanislas Verjus.

Bishop Verjus is recognised as one who contributed to the foundation of the Church in Papua New Guinea.

He spent just 7 years as a missionary before dying at the age of 32.

The recognition of a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Henri Baptiste Stanislas Verjus is now needed for the Church to proclaim him "Blessed"

Verjus was born May 26, 1860, in Oleggio, in the Diocese of Novara, Italy.

He was fifteen months old when his family left Oleggio to live in Savoy which was then part of France.

Verjus left Europe on November 19, 1884 and, after a brief stop at Sydney, he installed himself on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, 260 miles east of New Guinea.

On July 1, 1885, with two Italian Brothers, Salvatore Gaspara and Nicola Marconi, he set foot on Yule Island which was to become the base and centre of the Catholic mission in Papua.

Verjus was named Vicar Apostolic of New Britain on May 10, 1889, and was ordained on Sunday, September 22, 1889 by Bishop Louis André Navarre, Vicar Apostolic of New Guinea.

Three months later, on December 28, 1889, he was named coadjutor of Bishop André Navarre, Archbishop of Cyr and Vicar Apostolic of English New Guinea.

In April 1892, Verjus returned to Europe to look for funding and new missionaries for the mission.

He died suddenly death at Oleggio on November 13, 1892, at the age of 32.

Bishop Verjus is recognised as one who contributed to the foundation of the Church in a region.

Source

• misacor.org.au
• diocese-bourges.org
• Image: diocese-bourges.org

I spoke with a small fraction of the massive crowd that filled the streets near the Vatican, but every one of them agreed: Two popes, two saints, two more reasons to be happy.

Much of the commentariat - and I include myself in that class — has found issues to explore in this double canonization: the fast-tracking of John Paul II, the waiving of the second miracle for John XXIII, the politics of saintmaking and the ongoing tensions over the Second Vatican Council.

I've maintained that the double canonisation is a unifying move by Pope Francis, an attempt to build a bridge between constituencies in the church who identify with the "liberal" John XXIII or the more "conservative" John Paul II.

I still believe that's true. But among those in today's crowd, and probably throughout the global Catholic population, that kind of analysis was not all that relevant.

"The were both good people, holy men. John XXIII was a man of vision. John Paul II was a man of action. But they had the same intention - to bring the church closer to the people," said Rosemary Fabregas, a Catholic from San Francisco who sat in front of a Jumbrotron screen outside St Peter's Square.

An Italian pilgrim, asked about the saints' differences, put it this way:

"Differences? I don't know. The important thing is that they were both very spiritual and they both loved the poor." Continue reading.

John Thavis is a journalist, author and speaker specialising in Vatican and religious affairs.

Source: John Thavis

Image: Salt&Light/YouTube

Mora will be on hand at Sunday's historic ceremony in St Peter's Square as Pope Francis canonizes both John Paul and Pope John XXIII, the Italian pontiff known as "Good Pope John."

The Costa Rican mother of four faced the world's media to explain how her inexplicable recovery was a miracle that had led to the popular Polish pope being declared a saint.

Two miracles have been attributed to John Paul's intercession with God, paving the way for his sainthood.

In 2011, Mora was suffering from persistent headaches and was told by doctors that her days were numbered. They said her aneurism was in a "delicate" area and her only option was treatment in Mexico or Cuba, but her family could not afford it.

"The doctors told me there was no sense to continue treatment because they had done everything and there was not much more we could do," Mora told a packed media conference.

"They said I only had one month to live and there was no hope."

Confined to bed, she lay holding a magazine with a cover photograph of the Polish pope in her home in Tres Rios de Cartago, 12 miles from the capital of San Jose.

Her husband, Edwin, urged her to pray. Continue reading.

Source: RNS

Image: La Nación

This year Easter remains the spiritual linchpin, but in popular terms it's more like a warm-up act for next Sunday's double-play canonisations of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II.

This will be the first time two popes have been declared saints in the same ceremony, and although projections vary, well over a million people could turn out in Rome to watch history being made, with millions more following the event on TV or over the Internet.

Here are five things to know about the biggest Vatican happening of early 2014.

First, putting these two popes together amounts to a call for unity between the church's liberal and conservative wings.

In the Catholic street, John XXIII is an icon of the left, remembered as the pope who launched the reforming Second Vatican Council and opened the Church to the modern world.

John Paul II is a hero to the right, the pope who brought down Communism, who fought what he called a "culture of death" behind liberalising currents on abortion and other life issues, and who insisted on strong Catholic identity vis-à-vis secular pressures to water down the faith. Continue reading.

Source: The Boston Globe

Image: Jeunes-Cathos