All Souls Day

Often overshadowed by the two days preceding it, Halloween(October 31) and All SaintsDay (November 1), All Souls Day is a solemn feast in the Roman Catholic Church commemorating all of those who have died and now are in Purgatory, being cleansed of their venial sins and the temporal punishments for the mortal sins that they had confessed and atoning before entering fully into Heaven.

The importance of All Souls Day was made clear by Pope Benedict XV (1914-22), when he granted all priests the privilege of celebrating three Masses on All Souls Day: one, for the faithful departed; one for the priest's intentions; and one for the intentions of the Holy Father. Only on a handful of other very important feast days are priests allowed to celebrate more than two Masses.

While All Souls Day is now paired with All Saints Day, which celebrates all of the faithful who are in Heaven, it originally was celebrated in the Easter Season, around Pentacost Sunday(and still is in the Eastern Catholic Churches). By the tenth century, the celebration had been moved to October; and sometime between 998 and 1030, St. Odilo of Cluny decreed that it should be celebrated on November 2 in all of the monasteries of his Benedictine congregation. Over the next two centuries, other Benedictines and the Carthusians began to celebrate it in their monasteries as well, and soon it spread to the entire Church.

On All Souls Day, we not only remember the dead, but we apply our efforts, through prayer, almsgiving, and the Mass, to their release from Purgatory. There are two plenary indulgence attached to All Souls Day, one for visiting a church and another for visiting a cemetery. (The plenary indulgence for visiting a cemetery can also be obtained every day from November 1-8, and, as a partial indulgence, on any day of the year.) While the actions are performed by the living, the merits of the indulgences are applicable only to the souls in Purgatory.

Praying for the dead is a Christian obligation. In the modern world, when many have come to doubt the Church's teaching on Purgatory, the need for such prayers has only increased. The Church devotes the month of November to pray for the Holy souls in Purgatory, and participation in the Mass of All Souls Day is a good way to begin the month.

Opening prayer for the commemoration of all souls in the Saint Vincent cemetery 

The monastic community singing Psalm 51, processing through t he cemetery 

Solemnity of All Saints

The church in this great festival honours all the saints reigning together in glory; first, to give thanks to God for the graces and crowns of all his elect: secondly, to excite ourselves to a fervent imitation of their virtues by considering the holy example of so many faithful servants of God of all ages, sexes, and conditions, and by contemplating the inexpressible and eternal bliss which they already enjoy, and to which we are invited: thirdly, to implore the divine mercy through this multitude of powerful intercessors: fourthly, to repair any failures or sloth in not having duly honoured God in his saints on their particular festivals, and to glorify him in the saints which are unknown to us, or for which no particular festivals are appointed. Therefore our fervour on this day ought to be such that it may be a reparation of our sloth in all the other feasts of the year; they being all comprised in this one solemn commemoration, which is an image of that eternal great feast which God himself continually celebrates in heaven with all his saints, whom we humbly join in praising his adorable goodness for all his mercies, particularly for all treasures of grace which he has most munificently heaped upon them. In this and all other festivals of the saints God is the only object of supreme worship, and the whole of that inferior veneration which is paid to the saints is directed to give sovereign honour to God alone, whose gifts their graces are: and our addresses to them are only petitions to holy fellow creatures for the assistance of their prayers to God for us. When, therefore, we honour the saints, in them and through them we honour God, and Christ, true God and true man, the Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, the King of the Saints, and the source of all their sanctity and glory. In his blood they have washed their robes: from him they derive all their purity, whiteness, and lustre. We consider their virtues as copies taken from him, the great Original, as streams from his fountain, or as images of his virtues produced by the effusion of his spirit and grace in them. His divine life is their great exemplar and prototype, and in the characteristical virtues of each saint some of his most eminent virtues are particularly set forth: his hidden life in the solitude of the anchorets; his spotless purity in the virgins; his patience or charity in some; his divine zeal in others; in them all in some degree his plenitude of all virtue and sanctity Nor are the virtues of the saints only transcripts and copies of the life or spirit of Christ; they are also the fruit of his redemption; entirely his gifts and graces. And when we honour the saints we honour and praise him who is the Author of all their good; so that all festivals of saints are instituted to honour God and our Blessed Redeemer.

In all feasts of saints, especially in this solemn festival of All Saints, it ought to be the first part of our devotion to praise and thank God for the infinite goodness he has displayed in favour of his elect. A primary and most indispensable homage we owe to God is that of praise, the first act of love and complacency in God and his adorable perfections. Hence the Psalms, the most perfect and inspired model of devotions, repeat no sentiments so frequently or with so much ardour as those of divine adoration and praise. This is the uninterrupted sweet employment of the blessed in heaven to all eternity; and the contemplation of the divine love and other perfections is a perpetual incentive inflaming them continually afresh in it, so that they cannot cease pouring forth all their affections and exhausting all their powers; and conceive every moment new ardour in this happy function of pure love. So many holy solitaries of both sexes in this life have renounced all commerce and pleasures of the world, to devote themselves wholly to the mixed exercises of praise and love, and of compunction and humble supplication. In these, all servants of God find their spiritual strength, refreshment, advancement, delight, and joy. To aid our weakness and supply our insufficiency in magnifying the infinite Lord of all things, and exalting his glory, we have recourse to the spotless victim, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, put into our hands for us to offer a holocaust of infinite price, equal to the majesty of the Godhead. We also rejoice in the infinite glory which God possesses in himself, and from himself. Deriving from himself infinite greatness and infinite happiness, he stands not in need of our goods, and can receive no accession from our homages as to internal glory; in which consists his sovereign bliss. But there is an external glory which he receives from the obedience and praise of his creatures, which, though it increase not his happiness, is nevertheless indispensably due to him, and an external homage with which all beings are bound to sound forth his sovereign power and sanctity. Nor do we owe him this only for his own greatness and glory, which he possesses in himself, but also for the goodness, justice, wisdom' and power which he manifests in all his works. Compounds of the divine mercies as we are, we are bound to give to God incessant thanks for all the benefits, both in the order of nature and of grace, which he has gratuitously conferred upon us. We owe him also an acknowledgment of praise and thanksgiving for all his creatures from the beginning, and for all the wonders he has wrought in them or in their behalf. For this the psalmist and the prophets so often rehearse his mighty works, and invite all beings to magnify his holy name for them.

It is in his saints that he is wonderful above all his other works. For them was this world framed: for their sakes is it preserved and governed. In the revolution of states and empires, and in the extirpation or conservation of cities and nations, God has his elect chiefly in view. By the secret unerring order of his most tender and all-wise providence, "All things work together for good to them." For their sake will God shorten the evil days in the last period of the world. The justification of a sinner, the sanctification of a soul, the fruit of numberless stupendous works, the most wonderful exertion of infinite goodness and mercy, and of Almighty power. The creation of the universe out of nothing is a work which can bear no comparison with the salvation of a soul through the redemption of Christ. And with what infinite condescension and tenderness does the Lord of all things watch over every one of his elect! With what unspeakable invisible gifts does he adorn them! To how sublime and astonishing a dignity does he exalt them, making them companions of his blessed angels, and co-heirs with his Divine Son! Weak and frail en, plunged in the gulf of sin, he, by his omnipotent arm and by the most adorable and stupendous mercy, has re cued from the slavery of the devil and jaws of hell; has cleansed them from all stains; and by the ornaments of his grace has rendered them most beautiful and glorious. And with what honour has he crowned them! To what an immense height of immortal glory has he raised them! and by what means His grace conducted them by humility, patience, charity, and penance through ignominies, torments, pains, sorrows, mortifications, and temptations to joy and bliss, by the crass to their crowns. Lazarus, who here below was covered with ulcers, and denied the crumbs of bread which fell from the rich man's table, is now seated on a throne of glory, and replenished with delights which neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard. Poor fishermen, here the outcast of the world, are made assessors with Christ in judging the world at the last day; so great will be the glory and honour with which they will be placed on thrones at his right hand, and bear testimony to the equity of the sentence which he will pronounce against the wicked. "Thy friends are exceedingly honoured, O God." These glorious citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem he has chosen out of all the tribes of the children of Israel, and out of all nations, without any distinction of Greek or barbarian; persons of all ages, showing there is no age which is not ripe or fit for heaven; and out of all states and conditions; in the throne amidst the pomp of worldly grandeur; in the cottage; in the army; in trade; in the magistracy; clergymen, monks, virgins, married persons, widows, slaves, and freemen. In a word, what state is there that has not been honoured with its saints; And they were all made saints by the very occupations of their states, and by the ordinary occurrences of life; prosperity and adversity; health and sickness; honour and contempt; riches and poverty; all which they made the means of their sanctification by the constant exercise of patience, humility, meekness, charity, resignation, and devotion. This is the "manifold grace of God." We are called upon with the whole church militant on earth to join the church triumphant in heaven in praising and thanking our most merciful God for the graces and glory he has bestowed on his saints. Shall we not, at the same time, earnestly conjure him to exert his omnipotence and mercy in raising us from all our spiritual miseries and sins, healing the disorders of our souls, and conducting us through the paths of true penance to the happy company of his saints, to which he has vouchsafed most graciously to invite us?

Nothing can more powerfully incite us to aspire with all our strength to the incomparable happiness and blessed company of the saints than their example. Nor can anything more strongly inflame us with holy emulation than the constant meditation on that glory of which they are even now possessed, and in which they earnestly wait for us to join them. How does their immortality inspire us with a contempt of the inconstant, perishable, and false honours of this world!

Do we complain of our frailty? The saints were made of the same mould with us. But being sensible of their weakness, they were careful to retrench all incentives of their passions, to shun all dangerous occasions of sin, to ground themselves in the most profound humility, and to strengthen themselves by the devout use of the sacraments, prayer, an entire distrust in themselves, and other means of grace. It was by the strength they received from above, not by their own, that they triumphed over both their domestic and their external enemies. We have the same succours by which they were victorious. The blood of Christ was shed for us as it was for them; the all-powerful grace of our Redeemer is not wanting to us, but the failure is in ourselves. If difficulties start up, if temptations affright us, if enemies stand in our way like monsters and giants, which seem ready to devour us, let us not lose courage, but redouble our earnestness, crying out with Josue, "The Lord is with us. Why do we fear?" If the world pursue us, let us remember that the saints fought against it in all its shapes. If our passions are violent, Jesus has furnished us with arms to tame them and hold them in subjection. How furious assaults have many saints sustained in which they were supported by victorious grace! Of this many are instances who had had the misfortune formerly to have fortified their passions by criminal habits. St. Austin, after having been engaged many years in irregular courses, conquered them. How many other holy penitents broke stronger chains than ours can be, by courageously using violence upon themselves, and became eminent saints I Can we, then, for shame think the difficulties we apprehend an excuse for our sloth which, when we resolutely encounter them, we shall find to be more imaginary than real? Shall we shrink at the thought of self-denial, penance, or prayer? Shall not we dare to undertake or to do what numberless happy troupe of men and women have done and daily do? So many tender virgins, so many youths of the most delicate complexion and education, so many princes and kings, so many of all ages. constitutions, and conditions have courageously walked before us! "Canst not thou do what these and those persons of both sexes have done?" said St. Austin to himself. Their example wonderfully inspires us with resolution, and silences all the pretexts of pusillanimity. To set before our eyes a perfect model of the practice of true virtue, the Son of God became man and lived amongst us. That we may not say the example of a God-man is too exalted for us, we have that of innumerable saints who, inviting us to take up the sweet yoke of Christ, say to us with St. Paul, "Be you imitators of me, even as I am of Christ." They were men in all respects like ourselves, so that our sloth and cowardice can have no excuse. They form a cloud of witnesses, demonstrating to us, from their own experience, that the practice of Christian perfection is easy and sweet. They will rise up and condemn the wicked at the last day, covering them with inexpressible confusion; "Thou raisest up thy witnesses against me."

There is but one gospel, but one Redeemer and divine Legislator, Jesus Christ, and but one heaven. No other road can lead us thither but that which he has traced out to us: the rule of salvation laid down by him is invariable. It is a most pernicious and false persuasion, either that Christians in the world are not bound to aim at perfection, or that they may be saved by a different path from that of the saints. The torrent of example in the world imperceptibly instills this error into the minds of many, that there is a kind of middle way of going to heaven; and under this notion, because the world does not live up to the gospel, they bring the gospel down to the level or standard of the world. All Christians are commanded to labour to become holy and perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect, and to bear his image, and resemble him by spotless sanctity, that we may be his children. We are obliged by the law of the gospel to die to ourselves by the extinction of inordinate self-love in our hearts, by the crucifixion of the old man, and the mastery and regulation of our passions. It is no less indispensable an injunction laid on us than on them, that we be animated with, and live by, the Spirit of Christ; that is, the spirit of sincere and perfect humility, meekness, charity, patience, piety, and all other divine virtues. These are the conditions under which Christ makes us his promises and enrolls us among his children, as is manifest from all the divine instructions which he has given us in the gospel, and those which the apostles have left us in their inspired writings. Here is no distinction made between the apostles, or clergymen, or religious and secular persons. The former, indeed, take upon themselves certain stricter obligations, as means of accomplishing more easily and more perfectly these lessons; but the law of sanctity and of a disengagement of the heart from the world is general, and binds all the followers of Christ, all who can be entitled to inherit his promises. Now, what marks do we find in the lives of Christians of this crucifixion of their passions, and of the Spirit of Christ reigning in their hearts and actions? Do not detraction, envy, jealousy, anger, antipathies, resentments, vanity, love of the world, ambition, and pride discover themselves in their conversation and conduct, and as strongly as in the very heathens? It is in vain to plead that these are sins of surprise. It is manifest that they are sins of habit, and that these passions hold the empire in their hearts. An interior disposition of charity, meekness, and other virtues would give a very contrary turn to their conversation and behaviour, and would make them like the saints, humble, peaceable, mild, obliging to all, and severe only to themselves.

What, then, is the first duty of one who desires to become a disciple of Christ? This is a most important point which very few sufficiently attend to. The first thing which a Christian i9 bound to study is, in what manner he is to die to himself and his passions. This is the preliminary article or condition which Christ requires of him before he can be admitted into his divine school. For this such a practice of the exterior mortification of the senses is necessary that they may be kept under due government; but the interior denial of the will and restraint of the passions is the most essential part, and is chiefly effected by extirpating pride, vanity, revenge, and other irregular passions, and planting in the heart the most perfect spirit of humility, meekness, patience, and charity.

Can anyone pretend that seculars can be excused from the obligation of subduing their passions, retrenching sin, and aiming at perfection? Are they not bound to save their souls-that is, to be saints? God, who commands all to aim at perfection, yet whose will it is at the same time that to live in the world should be the general state of mankind, is not contrary to himself. That all places in the world should be filled is God's express command; also that the duties of every station in it be faithfully complied with. He requires not, then, that men abandon their employs in the world, but that by a disengagement of heart and religious motive or intention, they sanctify them. Thus has every lawful station in the world been adorned with saints. God obliges not men in the world to leave their business; on the contrary, he commands them diligently to discharge every branch of their temporal stewardship. The tradesman is bound to attend to his shop, the husbandman to his tillage, the servant to his work, the master to the care of his household and estates. These are essential duties which men owe to God, to the public, to themselves, and to their children and families; a neglect of which, whatever else they do, will suffice to damn them. But then, they must always reserve to themselves leisure for spiritual and religious duties; they must also sanctify all the duties of their profession. This is to be done by a good intention. It is the motive of our actions upon which, in a moral and Christian sense, the greatest part, or sometimes the whole, of every action depends. This is the soul of our actions; this determines them, forms their character, and makes them virtues or vices. If avarice, vainglory, sensuality, or the like inordinate inclinations influence the course of our actions, it is evident to what class they belong; and this is the poison which infects even the virtuous part of those who have never studied to mortify their passions.

But slothful Christians allege the difficulty of this precept; they think that perfectly to die to themselves is a severe injunction. God forbid anyone should widen the path which the Saviour of the world has declared to be narrow. It is doubtless difficult and requires resolution and courage. Who can think that heaven will cost him nothing which cost all the saints so much? What temporal advantage is gained without pains? The bread of labourers, the riches of misers, the honours of the ambitious, cost much anxiety and pains; yet, what empty shadows, what racking tortures, what real miseries are the enjoyment which worldlings purchase at so dear a rate! But it is only to our inordinate appetites (which we are bound to mortify, and the mortification of which will bring us liberty and true joy) that the doctrine of self-denial appears harsh. And its fruits in the soul are the reign of divine love; and the sweet "peace of God which passeth all understanding," which springs from the government of the passions, and the presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul, and is attended with a pure and holy joy which fills the whole capacity of the heart, and which the whole world can never take from the servant of God.

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us, Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of heaven, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Spirit, Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, Have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, Pray for us.
Holy Mother of God, Pray for us.
Holy Virgin of virgins, Pray for us.
Saint Michael, Pray for us.
Saint Gabriel, Pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Pray for us.
All ye holy angels and archangels, Pray for us.
All ye holy orders of blessed spirits, Pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, Pray for us.
Saint Joseph, Pray for us.
All ye holy patriarchs and prophets. Pray for us.
Saint Peter, Pray for us.
Saint Paul, Pray for us.
Saint Andrew, Pray for us.
Saint James, Pray for us.
Saint John, Pray for us.
Saint Thomas, Pray for us.
Saint James, Pray for us.
Saint Philip, Pray for us.
Saint Bartholomew. Pray for us.
Saint Matthew, Pray for us.
Saint Simon, Pray for us.
Saint Thaddeus, Pray for us.
Saint Matthias, Pray for us.
Saint Barnabas, Pray for us.
Saint Luke, Pray for us.
Saint Mark, Pray for us.
All ye holy apostles and evangelists, Pray for us.
All ye holy disciples of our Lord. Pray for us.
All ye holy Innocents, Pray for us.
Saint Stephen, Pray for us.
Saint Lawrence, Pray for us.
Saint Vincent, Pray for us.
Saints Fabian and Sebastian, Pray for us.
Saints John and Paul, Pray for us.
Saints Cosmas and Damian, Pray for us.
Saints Gervase and Protase, Pray for us.
All ye holy martyrs, Pray for us.
Saint Sylvester, Pray for us.
Saint Gregory, Pray for us.
Saint Ambrose, Pray for us.
Saint Augustine. Pray for us.
Saint Jerome, Pray for us.
Saint Martin, Pray for us.
Saint Nicolas, Pray for us.
All ye holy bishops and confessors, Pray for us.
All ye holy doctors, Pray for us.
Saint Anthony, Pray for us.
Saint Benedict, Pray for us.
Saint Bernard, Pray for us.
Saint Dominic, Pray for us.
Saint Francis, Pray for us.
All ye holy priests and levites, Pray for us.
All ye holy monks and hermits. Pray for us.
Saint Mary Magdalen, Pray for us.
Saint Agatha, Pray for us.
Saint Lucy, Pray for us.
Saint Agnes, Pray for us.
Saint Cecily, Pray for us.
Saint Catherine, Pray for us.
Saint Anastasia, Pray for us
All ye holy virgins and widows, Pray for us.
All ye holy men and women, Saints of God, Make intercession for us.

First Native American Saint

Msgr. Lenz Vice Postulator For Canonization
of First Native American Saint 

By Kim Metzgar
Saint Vincent Archabbey Public Relations

For nearly half his life, and 
more than thirty of his sixty-plus 
years as a priest, Msgr. Paul A. 
Lenz, C’46 S’49 D’95, has been 
involved in ministry and advocating for Native Americans. Thus, 
February 18 of this year was one 
of joy, excitement, and celebration, when Msgr. Lenz received 
word that Pope Benedict XVI 
announced that Blessed Kateri 
Tekakwitha will become the first 
Native American saint of the 
Roman Catholic Church on October 21, 2012.
“The response has been 
unbelievable,” he said two days 
after the news was announced. 
“I just cannot believe it. Everyone I have spoken to is so 
excited, both Catholic Indians 
and non-Catholic Indians. My 
phone has been ringing off the 
hook.”
Although he has been retired 
as Director of the National 
Black and Indian Mission Office 
in Washington, D.C. since 
2009, Msgr. Lenz has not been 
idle, continuing to serve as vice 
postulator for Blessed Kateri’s 
beatification cause. The coming 
months will not be idle either, 
as he will be involved with the 
liturgy the day of the canonization, and planning for the day. 
“She is the first Native American to be presented for sainthood,” said Msgr. Lenz. “She 
was born in 1656 near what 
is now Allegany, New York, and 
was known to be very holy. Hundreds of books and articles 
have been written about her.”
Kateri was known for her 

chastity and holiness before 
she died at age 24. She was 
beatified by Blessed John Paul 
II in 1980. The committee Msgr. 
Lenz served on submitted its 
documentation to the Vatican in 
September of 2009, and review 
of the documentation was then 
undertaken.
underlying tissue. 
“He was in the hospital 
for several months, and he 
required constant treatment,” 
Msgr. Lenz said. “At one point 
there was a team of 26 doctors 
working on his case.”
Father Tim Sauer, a family 
friend, told the boy’s parents to 
pray to Blessed Kateri. She was 
Msgr. Paul Lenz
The medical committee unanimously affirmed that a miracle 
had occurred, Msgr. Lenz said. 
That story involved a boy of six, 
Jacob Finkbonner, a member 
of the Lummi Nation from Bellingham, Washington, who was 
infected with necrotizing fascitis, a bacterial infection that 
can destroy muscle, skin, and 
known for teaching prayers to 
children and working with the 
elderly and sick. As a child her 
face had been badly scarred 
and her eyesight impaired by 
smallpox, a disease that killed 
her parents and brother. Due 
to the smallpox, she had pockmarks all over her face. 
“Maybe Blessed Kateri in 
heaven wanted a miracle for a 
young person who had scars 
from a similar affliction,” said 
Msgr. Lenz, noting that Blessed 
Kateri also had a great devotion 
to the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
The doctors told the Finkbonner family almost every 
night that they did not think 
Jake would live until the next 
morning, Msgr. Lenz said. The 
doctors, he added, also commented that it was not within 
their medical ability or modern 
medicine as it stands now that 
Jacob was kept alive for over 
two months, supporting the 
claim that his survival was a 
miracle.
Not expected to live, and 
with severe scarring and infection throughout his facial area, 
the family continued praying to 
Blessed Kateri Takakwitha, and 
Jake survived. He required subsequent treatment for damage 
to his face, and has much scarring. The boy, Msgr. Lenz said, 
will be the first to receive communion from Pope Benedict XVI 
during the canonization Mass.

New Saints!!!

Mother Marianne Cope, Kateri Tekakwitha among 7 new saints canonized by Pope Benedict

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Some 80,000 pilgrims in flowered lei, feathered headdresses and other traditional garb flooded St. Peter's Square on Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI added seven more saints onto the roster of Catholic role models in a bid to reinvigorate the faith in parts of the world where it's lagging.

Two of the new saints were Americans: Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the U.S., and Mother Marianne Cope, a 19th century Franciscan nun who cared for leprosy patients in Hawaii.

It seemed as if a third saint, Pedro Calungsod, a 17th century Filipino teenage martyr, drew the biggest crowd of all, with Rome's sizeable Filipino expat community turning out in flag-waving droves to welcome the country's second saint.

Native Indians wait for the start of a canonization ceremony celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. The pontiff will canonize seven people, Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the U.S., Maria del Carmen, Pedro Calungsod, Jacques Berthieu, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Mother Marianne Cope, and Anna Shaeffer.

In his homily, Benedict praised each of the seven as heroic and courageous examples for the entire church, calling Cope a "shining" model for Catholics and Kateri an inspiration to indigenous faithful across North America.

"May the witness of these new saints ... speak today to the whole church, and may their intercession strengthen and sustain her in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world," he said.

The celebrations began at dawn, with Native Americans in beaded and feathered headdresses and leather-fringed tunics singing songs to Kateri to the beat of drums as the sun rose over St. Peter's Square.

Later, the crowds cheered as the pope read out the names of each of the new saints in Latin and declared that they were worthy of veneration by the entire church. Prayers were read out in Mohawk and Cebuano, the dialect of Calungsod's native Cebu province, and in English by a nun wearing a lei.

"It's so nice to see God showing all the flavors of the world," marveled Gene Caldwell, a Native American member of the Menominee reservation in Neopit, Wisconsin, who attended with his wife, Linda. "The Native Americans are enthralled" to have Kateri canonized, he said.

The canonization coincided with a Vatican meeting of the world's 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 - even though they lived hundreds of years ago - will be relevant today as the Catholic Church tries to hold on to its faithful. It's a tough task as the Vatican faces competition from evangelical churches in Africa and Latin America, increasing secularization in the West and disenchantment due to the clerical sex abuse scandal in Europe and beyond.

The two American saints actually hail from roughly the same place - what is today upstate New York - although they lived two centuries apart.

Known as the "Lily of the Mohawks," Kateri was born in 1656 to a pagan Iroquois father and an Algonquin Christian mother. Her parents and only brother died when she was 4 during a smallpox epidemic that left her badly scarred and with impaired eyesight. She went to live with her uncle, a Mohawk, and was baptized Catholic by Jesuit missionaries. But she was ostracized and persecuted by other natives for her faith, and she died in what is now Canada when she was 24.

Speaking in English and French, in honor of Kateri's Canadian ties, Benedict noted how unusual it was in Kateri's indigenous culture for her to choose to devote herself to her Catholic faith.

"May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are," Benedict said. "Saint Kateri, protectress of Canada and the first Native American saint, we entrust you to the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America!"

Among the few people chosen to receive Communion from the pope himself was Jake Finkbonner, a 12-year-old boy of Native American descent from the western U.S. state of Washington, whose recovery from an infection of flesh-eating bacteria was deemed "miraculous" by the Vatican. The Vatican determined that Jake was cured through Kateri's intercession after his family and community invoked her in their prayers, paving the way for her canonization.

Cope is revered among many Catholics in Hawaii, where she arrived from New York in 1883 to care for leprosy patients on Kalaupapa, an isolated peninsula on Molokai Island where Hawaii governments forcibly exiled them for decades. At the time, there was widespread fear of the disfiguring disease, which can cause skin lesions, mangled fingers and toes and lead to blindness.

Cope, however, led a band of Franciscan nuns to the peninsula to care for the patients, just as Saint Damien, a Belgian priest, did in 1873. He died of the disease 16 years later and was canonized in 2009.

"At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm," Benedict said in his homily. "She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis."

Two-hundred fifty pilgrims from Hawaii traveled to Rome for Mother Marianne's canonization, including nine Kalaupapa patients, as well as faithful from the local diocese.

"Marianne Cope means a great deal to us," said pilgrim Aida Javier, who traveled from Honolulu with her husband Romy for the Mass. "My husband and I feel blessed and honored to be part of this canonization."

Another pilgrim was Sharon Smith, of Syracuse, New York, whose 2005 cure from complications from pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas, was declared medically inexplicable by the Vatican - the "miracle" needed for Mother Marianne to be named a saint. In an interview last week, Smith recounted how she had fainted one day in her home, an allergic reaction to medication she was taking for a kidney transplant, and awoke in the hospital to find that doctors weren't giving her much time to live.

Her disease was eating away at her insides, causing her stomach to detach from her intestines. Doctors said they couldn't repair it. At a certain point, a nun pinned a bag of ashes and dirt from Mother Marianne's grave on her and prayed.

"I had never heard of her, but we continued to pray," Smith said. "And I just, I started getting better."

"I believe in miracles, but I don't know whether it was all the prayers, or the pinning of the relic, but I know that something worked, and I'm here for some reason," Smith said.

The Vatican's complicated saint-making procedure requires that the Vatican certify a "miracle" was performed through the intercession of the candidate - a medically inexplicable cure that can be directly linked to the prayers offered by the faithful. One miracle is needed for beatification, a second for canonization.

The Philippines' second saint, Calungsod, was 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.

"We are especially proud because he is so young," said Marianna Dieza, a 39-year-old housekeeper working in Rome who was on hand for the Mass.

The other new saints are: Jacques Berthieu, a 19th century French Jesuit who was killed by rebels in Madagascar, where he had worked as a missionary; Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian who founded a religious order in 1900 and established a Catholic printing and publishing house in his native Brescia; Carmen Salles y Barangueras, a Spanish nun who founded a religious order to educate children in 1892; and Anna Schaeffer, a 19th century German lay woman who became a model for the sick and suffering after she fell into a boiler and badly burned her legs. The wounds never healed, causing her constant pain.

By The Associated Press 
on October 21, 2012 at 7:15 AM

Saint Paul of the Cross

Paul Francis Daneii, born at Ovada, Genoa, Italy, 3 January, 1694; died in Rome, 18 October, 1775.

His parents, Luke Danei and Anna Maria Massari, were exemplary Catholics. From his earliest years the crucifix was his book, and the Crucified his model. Paul received his early education from a priest who kept a school for boys, in Cremolino, Lombardy. He made great progress in study and virtue; spent much time m prayer, heard daily Mass, frequently received the Sacraments, faithfully attended to his school duties, and gave his spare time to reading good books and visiting the churches, where he s p e n t much time before the Blessed Sacrament, to which he had an ardent devotion. At the age of fifteen he left school and re turned to his home at Castellazzo, and from this time his life was full of trials. In early manhood he renounced the offer of an honorable marriage; also a good inheritance left him by an uncle who was a priest. He kept for himself only the priest's Breviary.

Inflamed with a desire for God's glory he formed the idea of instituting a religious order in of the Passion. Vested in a black tunic by the Bishop of Alessandria, his director, bearing the emblem of our Lord's Passion, barefooted, and bareheaded, he retired to a narrow cell where he drew up the Rules of the new congregation according to the plan made known to him in a vision, which he relates in the introduction to the original copy of the Rules. For the account of his ordination to the priesthood, of the foundation of the Congregation of the Passion, and the approbation of the Rules, see PASSIONISTS. After the approbation of the Rules and the institute the first general chapter was held at the Retreat of the Presentation on Mount Argentaro on 10 April, 1747. At this chapter, St. Paul, against his wishes, was unanimously elected first superior general, which office he held until the day of his death. In all virtues and in the observance of regular discipline, he became a model to his companions. "Although continually occupied with the cares of governing his religious society, and of founding everywhere new houses for it, yet he never left off preaching the word of God, burning as he did with a wondrous desire for the salvation of souls" (Brief of Pius IX for St. Paul's Beatification, 1 Oct., 1852). Sacred missions were instituted and numerous conversions were made. He was untiring in his Apostolic labours and never, even to his last hour, remitted anything of his austere manner of life, finally succumbing to a severe illness, worn out as much by his austerities as by old age.

Among the distinguished associates of St. Paul in the formation and extension of the congregation were: John Baptist, his younger brother and constant companion from childhood, who shared all his labours and sufferings and equaled him in the practice of virtue; Father Mark Aurelius (Pastorelli), Father Thomas Struzzieri (subsequently Bishop of Amelia and afterwards of Todi), and Father Fulgentius of Jesus, all remarkable for learning, piety, and missionary zeal; Venerable Strambi, Bishop of Macerata and Tolentino, his biographer. Constant personal union with the Cross and Passion of our Lord was the prominent feature of St. Paul's sanctity. But devotion to the Passion did not stand alone, for he carried to a heroic degree all the other virtues of a Christian life. Numerous miracles, besides those special ones brought forward at his beatification and canonization, attested the favour he enjoyed with God. Miracles of grace abounded, as witnessed in the conversion of sinners seemingly hardened and hopeless. For fifty years he prayed for the conversion of England, and left the devotion as a legacy to his sons. The body of St. Paul lies in the Basilica of SS. John and Paul, Rome. He was beatified on 1 October, 1852, and canonized on 29 June, 1867. His feast occurs on 28 April. The fame of his sanctity, which had spread far and wide in Italy during his life, increased after his death and spread into all countries. Great devotion to him is practiced by the faithful wherever Passionists are established.

"Look upon the face of the Crucified, who invites you to follow Him. He will be a Father, Mother--everything to you." Saint Paul of the Cross