Among the Blessed who will have their holiness officially recognized are a Dutch priest and two founding nuns.
Vatican City (12/03/2022 10:00 AM, Gaudium Press) Pope Francis has decided the date of the canonization of three Blessed: the Dutch Carmelite Priest Titus Brandsma; the French Sister Maria Rivier, founder of the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary; and the Italian Sister Maria de Jesus, founder of the Congregation of the Capuchin Sisters of the Immaculate of Lourdes.
These three Blessed will have their sanctity officially recognized on May 15th, along with seven other Blessed whose canonization had been decreed by the Pope in the Consistory of May 3, 2021, without setting a date because of the pandemic. The ceremony was then set for May.
Blessed Martyr Father Titus Bradsma
Titus Bradsma, a Dutchman, professed priest of the Carmelite order, a teacher for many years, lived the peak of his ministry during the Nazism that also spread in the Netherlands. As ecclesiastical assistant to the association of Catholic journalists, he visits the country’s editorial offices and encourages them to resist the regime.
He was arrested in January 1942 and killed the following July 26, at the age of 61, with an injection of carbolic acid in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The miracle recognized by his canonization concerns the healing of a Carmelite father of “metastatic melanoma to the lymph nodes”, which occurred in 2004 in Palm Beach, USA.
Blessed Maria Rivier, foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary
Maria Rivier, was born in a small town in eastern France. At one and a half years old, she fell out of bed suffering damage that affected her growth. At the age of nine she felt the desire to consecrate herself. Her poor health caused her to be rejected by an institute and then, by divine inspiration, she opened a school to dedicate herself to the care of the sick and the poor. When the French Revolution broke out, despite the insurgents’ hostility toward religious communities, she founded one in 1796 that five years later took the name Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary.
Rivier died on February 3, 1838, and John Paul II beatified her in May 1982. The miracle recognized for her canonization and attributed to her intercession concerns the vital recovery of a child born in “prolonged absence of cardiac, respiratory and neurological activity.” The event took place in Meru, Kenya, in 2013.
Blessed Mary of Jesus, foundress of the Congregation of the Capuchin Sisters of the Immaculate of Lourdes
Carolina Santocanale, was born in the Italian city of Palermo in the year 1852. Early on she felt a strong attraction to the consecrated life, however, despite being in an arranged marriage, she changes her plans and in 1873 she joined the Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary of the parish of Sant’Antonio Abate. Some experiences developed in her the conviction that God was calling her to an active life and not to a contemplative one. In 1887 she became a regular Franciscan tertiary, with the name Maria de Jesus.
In 1909 she founded the Congregation of the Capuchin Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Lourdes. The miracle attributed to her intercession concerns two pregnancies performed, between 2016 and 2017, by a Sicilian woman suffering from a serious pathology that caused her infertility. (EPC)
Compiled by Teresa Joseph
