The reason for the massive outdoor gathering was the pope's official proclamation of 10 new saints. It was the Catholic Church's first canonisation ceremony in over two years. Two thousand priests concelebrated the event with the Holy Father.

Rather than speaking solely of the newly canonised saints' lives and legacies during his homily at the celebratory Mass, Francis also offered advice on how to follow the path of holiness.

"Our fellow travellers who are canonised today lived their holiness by embracing with enthusiasm their vocation," he said.

He encouraged those present to follow the example of those who, in their time, were "brilliant reflections of the Lord of history".

It is not a matter of implementing a form of "personal heroics", Francis explained.

Rather, it's about following one's own vocation.

This vocation is to love, Francis said.

"For amid the darkness and tempests of life, that is the most important thing of all: God loves us."

Holiness is accessible to all of us, not just the superhuman, he said.

"Holiness does not consist of a few heroic gestures, but of many small acts of daily love."

The pope painted a picture of what he likes to call the everyday holiness of the "saints next door".

He also corrected what he described as a false image of holiness, with some advice about what's needed to achieve that state.

"At times, by over-emphasising our efforts to do good works, we have created an ideal of holiness excessively based on ourselves, our personal heroics… our readiness for self-sacrifice to achieve a reward," he said.

"We have turned holiness into an unattainable goal.

"We have separated it from everyday life, instead of looking for it and embracing it in our daily routines, in the dust of the streets, in the trials of real life and, in the words of Teresa of Avila to her Sisters, 'among the pots and pans'."

We are called "to serve, that is, not to put our own interests first: to clear our systems of the poison of greed and competitiveness; to fight the cancer of indifference and the worm of self-referentiality.

"Specifically, we should ask ourselves 'What do I do for others?' in order to go about our daily lives in a spirit of service, with unassuming love and without seeking any recompense".

Francis also addressed the political leaders present at the Mass, alluding to the geopolitical situation that Europe is currently experiencing.

Once again, he drew on the image of those he had just proclaimed new saints.

"While... tensions and wars increase, may the new saints inspire solutions of togetherness and ways of dialogue, especially in the hearts and minds of those who hold positions of great responsibility and are called upon to be agents of peace, not war," he said.

Source

• La Croix
• Image: Stuff

The Vatican announced the date yesterday after the green light for the canonization was given on 3 May during the ordinary public consistory. Charles de Foucauld will also be canonised in the same ceremony.

Born Devasahayam Pillai on 23 April 1712 in Nattalam, a village in Tamil Nadu, the future saint hailed from a high caste Hindu family. After embarking on a military career, he became an official in the royal palace of the Kingdom of Travancore.

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He is now on the road to sainthood, thanks to a norm issued by Pope Francis this summer that opens the door to canonisation for those who have "voluntarily and freely offered their lives for others and have persevered until death in this regard."

Fernando was sent to Cambodia while still a seminarian. He worked as a teacher in a technical school for the handicapped.

In the school, people who were disabled, most especially landmine victims, learned skills which help them earn a living.

Among his students was Sarom, a sixteen-year-old boy who was a victim of a landmine. He wanted to finish his studies there but he was asked to leave by the school authorities for his disruptive attitude.

According to Fernando, Sarom was tricky but he still had a place for him in his heart.

On October 17, 1996, Sarom came to the school for a meeting. Angered, he suddenly he reached into a bag he was carrying, pulled out a grenade, and began to move towards a classroom full of students; the windows of the room were barred, leaving the students no escape.

Fernando came up behind Sarom and grabbed him. Sarom tried to free himself but the missionary held on to Sarom.

Sarom accidentally dropped the grenade behind Richie, and in a flash, Richie was dead.

While the Philippines is a Catholic-majority country, the island nation only claims two canonised saints thus far, both of whom died in the 17th century.

However, numerous causes have been opened in recent years, with many people in the various steps of the process of canonisation.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• 2oth Century Martyrs Blogspot
• Jesuit Asia Pacific Conference

Suzanne Aubert was the founder of the Sisters of Compassion, New Zealand's only home grown order of Sisters.

In 1997 the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference supported the first part of the formal process, called the "Introduction of the Cause of Suzanne Aubert".

Last year Pope Francis declared Suzanne Aubert ‘venerable' - the second formal stage on the way to being declared a saint.

If Suzanne Aubert's Cause for Sainthood is successful, she will be New Zealand's first saint.

Bishop Charles Drennan, the liaison Bishop for Suzanne Aubert's Cause, commented "kiwi culture readily celebrates its sports heroes and sometimes its arts and music high achievers.

"Suzanne Aubert's gutsy life focused solely and relentlessly on the needs of others helps us also to celebrate a radical life of practical faith."

He went on to say, "Mother Aubert's life shifts holiness onto our streets and fields.

"Hers is a gumboots ‘n sleeves rolled up type of saintliness that resonates both in this country and overseas, with growing interest in her Cause in France and parts of the Pacific."

Sister Margaret Anne, congregational leader for the Sisters of Compassion, said "The 1^st of October gives us the opportunity to rejoice in the faith filled life of Suzanne Aubert but more importantly to dare to follow her example by taking the time to listen to the promptings of the Spirit.

Last year marked the 90th year since Aubert's death in New Zealand after dedicating 66 years of her life to living among, learning from and wal

Read full press release

Source
Supplied Amanda Gregan
Communications Advisor - NZ Catholic Bishops
Te Huinga o nga Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa

And Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn will lead commemorations as part of the 11am mass on Sunday at St Patrick's Cathedral.

More than a thousand people are expected to attend the Auckland Sunday morning commemoration.

People of many faiths are expected to attend including representatives from the Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic faiths.

The five Auckland-based nuns of Mother Teresa's Order, The Missionaries of Charity will also be there.

An inter-faith committee (see below) is also planning an event in November at St Paul's College in Ponsonby to celebrate her sainthood.

"Her work of loving service and care for the poorest of the poor in India knew no religious or cultural boundaries, and people of the world's great faiths honour her as one of their own," said Lyndsay Freer, spokeswoman for the Auckland Catholic Diocese.

"This has been evident in Auckland, when six years ago a unique inter-faith committee was formed by people of several faiths to arrange an annual event to commemorate Mother Teresa's legacy of service to the poor in India."

Mother Teresa visited New Zealand in 1973, where she was met in Wellington by the then Prime Minister Norman Kirk and Leader of the Opposition Jack Marshall.

In Auckland, she attended and spoke at a rally at Alexandra Park."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• aucklandcatholic.org.nz
• Image: ethniccommunities.govt.nz

Supporters and researchers presented their case before the Archdiocese of Santa Fe at a ceremonial "first inquiry" in Albuquerque on why Sister Blandina Segale should become a saint. The public inquiry, headed by former Archbishop Michael Sheehan, was aimed at determining if there was enough evidence to move her case through the largely secret process at the Vatican. Continue reading

In his homily, the pope praised each of the seven new saints as examples for the entire church. They "lived their lives in total consecration to God and in generous service to their brothers," the pope said.

The canonization coincided with the Synod of Bishops on trying to revive Christianity in places where it's fallen by the wayside.

Several of the new saints were missionaries, making clear the pope hopes their example will be relevant today as the Catholic Church tries to hold onto its faithful.

One of the new saints was Pedro Calungsod, a Filipino teenager who helped Jesuit priests convert natives in Guam in the 17th century but was killed by spear-wielding villagers opposed to the missionaries' efforts to baptize their children.

Rome's sizeable Filipino expat community came out in droves for the Mass, the Associated Press reported.

Another new saint is Native American Kateri Tekakwitha, known as "Lily of the Mohawks," who for centuries has been a symbol of hope for the long-oppressed American Indians.

About 80,000 faithful from various countries, including American Indians, who gathered on the square outside St. Peter's Basilica, which was decked with portraits of those being canonized.

The other new saints include a French missionary to Madagascar, a German migrant to the United States who took care of lepers and a Spanish nun who campaigned for women's rights.

The Agence France Presse quoted Vatican watchers as saying the choice of the saints was linked to the Catholic Church's efforts to highlight the need for a "new evangelisation" as church pews empty in Europe and the United States.

Another figure from North America who became a saint was German-born Franciscan nun Maria Anna Cope, who was born in 1838 and became known as the "Mother Marianne of Molokai" because she looked after lepers on the island of Molokai in the Hawaii archipelago.

A French Jesuit, Jacques Berthieu, who was executed in 1896 in Madagascar by rebels from the Menalamba movement, was also canonized.

The missionary refused to renounce his faith and is considered the first saint of Madagascar, where he lived for 21 years.

A German lay woman, Maria Schaeffer, who was from the pope's German home state of Bavaria, was also rewarded by the pope.

Schaeffer, who died in 1925, was badly burnt after falling into boiling water and spent the rest of her life bedridden. She is credited with spreading the word of God in local villages.

An Italian priest, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, who in the late 19th century devoted his life to helping young people during the industrial revolution and founded a religious congregation, was also canonized.

The seventh new saint, Spanish nun Maria del Carmen, also founded a congregation and worked to better the lot of poor women in the 19th century, defending their social rights and helping their children's education.

The new canonisations bring to 44 the number of saints named by the pope since the start of his pontificate in 2005.

Catholic saints have to have two miracles to their names, which must be certified by the Vatican in a years-long procedure.

Sources

• Agence France Presse
• Associated Press
• Reuters
• Image: AFP

Among the new saints, two come from the United States, Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

Mother Marianne (Barbara Koob, 1838-1918) was born in Germany and grew up in Utica, New York. She joined the Sisters of Saint Francis in Syracuse in 1862 and became a leader at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse in 1869.

She led a group of Sisters from New York to the Hawaiian Islands in 1883 to establish a system of nursing care for leprosy patients. She never returned to New York, and ministered on Molokai in a place called Kalaupapa.

Blessed Kateri, daughter of a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father in upstate New York, becomes the first Native American to be canonized. She was baptized by a Jesuit missionary in 1676 when she was 20; she died in Canada four years later.

The other saints are Jesuit priest Jacques Berthieu who was born in Polminhac, France, and martyred on June 8, 1896, in Ambiatibe, Madagascar.

Pedro Calungsod, a lay catechist born in Cebu, in the Philippines, was martyred on April 2, 1672, in Guam.

Father Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth for men and the Humble Servants of the Lord for women. He died in 1913.

Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Spanish founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. She worked with disadvantaged girls and prostitutes and saw that early education was essential for helping young women. She died in 1911.

Anna Schaffer, a lay German woman who wanted to be a missionary, but could not because of a succession of physical accidents and diseases. She accepted her infirmity as a way of sanctification. Her grave has been a pilgrimage site since her death in 1925.

At least 5,000 Filipino pilgrims are expected to attend the canonization rites for Pedro Calungsod, the news site Interaksyon reported. The pilgrims will be led by some 200 priests, cardinals, bishops, and archbishops.

Calungsod is only the second Filipino to be declared a saint. The first was San Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila.

In the United States, bus loads of religious pilgrims left Syracuse on Monday, bound for flights to Rome for Sunday's canonization of Marianne Cope.

Meanwhile, the head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said saints are "indispensable protagonists" of the New Evangelization, which is the focus of the ongoing synod in Rome.

"The saints evangelize by their virtuous lives," said Cardinal Angelo Amato. "They incarnate the evangelical beatitudes. They are the mirror to fidelity to Christ," he was quoted as saying by the Catholic News Agency.

Sources

• CNS/The Valley Catholic
• Catholic News Service
• Interaksyon
• AP/Contra Costa Times
• 9WSR
• Image: Orbis Catholicus