VATICAN - The Pope tells pilgrims in Rome for the beatification of Mothers Ascension de Corazon de Jesus Nicol Goni, and Marianne Cope “Exemplary witnesses of Christ's charity these two new Blessed help us to better understand the meaning and the value of our Christian vocation”

Tuesday, 17 May 2005

Vatican City (Fides Service) - On Monday 16 May Pope Benedict XVI received pilgrims who participated in Saturday's ceremony for the beatification of Mothers Ascension de Corazon de Jesus Nicol Goni, and Marianne Cope. "Exemplary witnesses of Christ's charity," said the Holy Father, "these two new Blessed help us to better understand the meaning and the value of our Christian vocation.".
Speaking in Spanish the Pope said “You have come to Rome to revive the missionary message left to the Church with her life and her deeds by Mother Ascensión del Corazón de Jesús Nicol Goñi. “I encourage you to ponder in your heart the apostolic ardour born of love for Jesus which Mother Ascensión lived and passed on to her spiritual daughters”. Addressing the Missionary Dominicans of the Rosary, the Holy Father urged them to: “keep alive the experience of the closeness of God in missionary life - 'how close God feels,' Mother Ascension used to say. And keep alive the spirit of fraternity in your communities, always ready to go where the Church most needs you, with the same pioneering spirit that took Mother Ascension to the wild lands of the Vicariate of Puerto Maldonado."”. The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims from that apostolic vicariate and from other areas of Peru, "who saw a precious fruit of genuine evangelisation come into bloom, cultivated with special care by female hands." He also greeted pilgrims from Navarre, the area of Spain in which the new Blessed was born, and “from other parts of Spain where the Gospel took deep root and gave so many missionaries for all over the world.
The Pope then recalled that the beatification took place “on a very significant day for missionaries and the whole Church: the eve of Pentecost, the time when under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, the disciples of Jesus started without fear to proclaim openly and everywhere the Master’s teaching. From then on others accepted to missionary mandate putting their energies at the service of the Gospel”.
Addressing the visitors who had come for the beatification of Mother Marianne Cope, the Pope said in English: “Marianne Cope's life was one of profound faith and love which bore fruit in a missionary spirit of immense hope and trust. In 1862 she entered the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse where she imbibed the particular spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi, dedicating herself wholeheartedly to spiritual and corporal works of mercy.” When she was superior general of her Congregation the Bishop of Honolulu asked the Order to come to Hawai per to work among people with leprosy. “Fifty other Congregations received the same plea for assistance, but only Mother Marianne, in the name of her Sisters, responded positively. True to the charisma of the Order and in imitation of Saint Francis, who had embraced lepers, Mother Marianne volunteered herself for the mission with a trusting, “Yes”! And for thirty-five years, until her death in 1918, our new Blessed dedicated her life to the love and service of lepers on the islands of Maui and Molokai. Undoubtedly the generosity of Mother Marianne was, humanly speaking, exemplary. Good intentions and selflessness alone, however, do not adequately explain her vocation. It is only the perspective of faith which enables us to understand her witness — as a Christian and as a Religious — to that sacrificial love which reaches its fullness in Jesus Christ. All that she achieved was inspired by her personal love of the Lord which she in turn expressed through her love of those abandoned and rejected by society in a most wretched way.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 17/5/2005, righe 33, parole 491)


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