Our Lady Of Ostrabrama

The original of the holy image of Our Lady of Ostrabrama is housed in the chapel of the Dawn Gate of Vilnius, Lithuania.

The original painting is 163 x 200 cm and was painted by an unknown artist on 8 oak planks around 1630. It was covered with silver and gold around 1671. The head of Our Lady is adorned with two crowns. Two little angels lower the crown with colored glass inlays upon the smaller crown. The two crowns, made of pure gold, were blessed by Pope Pius XI in 1927. On July 2, 1927 a coronation ceremony took place and the painting received the title of Mother of Mercy.

The painting is an unusual portrayal of Mary since she is depicted without the infant Jesus.

The painting depicts the many facets of Mary. Her head is gently leaning to her right, her eyes are half closed, her hands are crossed in devotion. This reminds us that she is a virgin, humble servant of the Lord, merciful mother and patron of the people. At the same time, her head is surrounded by sun rays and her body is covered in elaborate gold and silver clothes and crowns. These are the symbols of her divine and majestic role as the Queen of Heaven.

The history of Our Lady of the Dawn, who is also known as Our Lady of Ostra Brama, begins in 1386. In that year prince Władysław Jagiełło (1351 – 1434) of Lithuania married the Polish princess Jadwiga. As part of the contact for marriage Jagiełło pledged the conversion of the Lithuanian people to Christianity. The marriage resulted in the joining of Poland and Lithuania into a Commonwealth of Nations. With the advent of Christianity, Marian devotions were introduced by princess Jadwiga.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (or The Commonwealth of the Two Nations, Rzeczpospolita Oboja Narodów in Polish) was a federal monarchy-republic formed by the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania and which was governed by an elected monarch.

Due to frequent attacks on the Lithuanian lands from the Tartars and regular conflicts with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, in 1503 Grand Duke Alexander of Lithuania granted the city of Vilnius a privilege to build fortifications of brick and stone around the entire city. The Gate of Dawn was built between 1503 and 1522 as a part of these defensive fortifications for the city of Vilnius. It has also been known as the Medininkai Gate, as it led to the village Medininkai south of Vilnius. 

In the Lithuanian language this gate was commonly known as ‘Auros Vartai’ (the gate of dawn). The Polish speaking population knew it as ‘Ostra Brama’ (the sharp gate).

Of the nine city gates, only the Gate of Dawn remains, while the others were destroyed.

Above each of the gates the people of the town placed an image of the Blessed Virgin. in the 16th century city gates often contained religious artifacts intended to guard the city from attacks and to bless travelers. About a century later, the Carmelite Order took over one of the parish churches in the vicinity of the southeastern gate of the town.

In 1655 the army of Moscow set fire to the city of Vilnius and most of the town was destroyed. The fire lasted seventeen days. However, the image above the Ostra Brama gate survived without any damage. This strongly encouraged the people’s devotion toward it and attracted many pilgrims. Since then it is considered a miraculous symbol of Lithuanian and Polish independence.

Between 1671 and 1761 seventeen more miracles attributed to the Lady in this image were chronicled. One story tells of a boy who fell from the second floor of a building and died. When his mother prayed before Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn he revived.

In 1702, when Swedes occupied Vilnius, it was forbidden to worship the icon publicly and to gather in the street. During the liberation fight of the gates, the icon of Our Lady was damaged by a shot. In 1711 the Chapel holding the image burned completely, but not before the miraculous painting was carried out of the fire by a young monk. For 20 years, the painting resided in the Church of St. Teresa. A new Chapel was subsequently built by the gate and the miraculous painting was reinstalled with great ceremony.

In 1799 Russian forces began to destroy the walls and gates of Vilnius. Inexplicably the Ostra Brama gate was left untouched.

In 1829, the chapel took on the style of the late Classicism. The chapel was built so that the faithful could pray in front of it in the street, because the entrance to the chapel was from the monastery's garden, and lay people, especially women, were not allowed to enter there. During the reconstruction work in 1828-1829, the side windows were enlarged to reach the floor level.

The chapel was renovated in 1931-1932. During the Second World War and the Nazi German occupation of Lithuania the Archbishop of Vilnius decided that the miraculous picture should stay in the town. During the Russian communist occupation of Lithuania the chapel of Ostra Brama remained open.

On September 4, 1993 Pope John Paul II said The Rosary at the Gate of Dawn Chapel.

Prayer

Prayer to The Mother of God of Ostra Brama Mother of Mercy

From St Faustina Maria Kowalska’s Diary

“O Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer you my soul, my body, my life and my death, and all that will follow it. I place everything in your hands. O my Mother, cover my soul with your virginal mantle and grant me the grace of purity of heart, soul and body. Defend me with your power against all enemies, and especially against those who hide their malice behind the mask of virtue (79). Fortify my soul that pain will not break it. Mother of grace, teach me to live by God’s power (315).” “O Mary … a terrible sword has pierced your holy soul. Except for God, no one knows of your suffering. Your soul does not break; it is brave, because it is with Jesus. Sweet Mother, unite my soul to Jesus, because it is only then that I will be able to endure all trials and tribulations, and only in union with Jesus will my little sacrifices be pleasing to God. Sweetest Mother, continue to teach me about the interior life. May the sword of suffering never break me. O pure Virgin, pour courage into my heart and guard it (915).”

The messages concealed in the bronze ciborium of St. Charles Borromeo

The ciborium, which dominates the main altar of the Duomo di Milano, is the heart of the Cathedral’s Eucharistic life.

It could be considered the architectural element that, more than others, recalls the legacy of St. Charles’ Liturgical Reform (ca. 1580), specifically regarding the themes narrated in bronze, but we shall take a few steps back in time to understand why.

When Card. Charles Borromeo came to Milan in 1565 as Archbishop, he appointed Pellegrino Tibaldi (called Pellegrini), architect of Veneranda Fabbrica from 1567 to 1585, to create a new presbytery that would implement the Counter-Reformation model of the church in the Duomo to celebrate Eucharistic worship even outside the mass, thus contrasting the Lutheran negation of the actual presence of Christ in bread and wine.

Hence, the Holy Eucharist was given the utmost importance in symbolic references and in the episodes portrayed.

St. Charles’ project followed a solution that had already been proposed by Nicolò Ormaneto, Borromeo’s Vicar General during his absence from Milan in 1564-65. The tower-shaped tabernacle lifted by angels (it was donated by Pius IV, at the time Giovanni Angelo Medici, to his nephew Charles Borromeo during his episcopacy) was placed at the centre of the monumental bronze ciborium, which was designed ex novo.

Visually the displayed presence of the Holy Eucharist in the presbytery formed the one-point perspective not only of the Cathedral’s architectural lines. In fact, it also summarised the spiritual tension dictated by usinf the presbytery both for festive celebrations and as weekday chapel.
The faithful had to solely focus on the ciborium, while the former altar was turned into the base of the ciborium itself. Hence, adoration and worship were emphasised.

The ciborium designed and constructed by Pellegrino Tibaldi in the 1580s features 8 bronze Corinthian columns with capitals and golden details. They support a dome that is lined, both inside and outside, with embossed, gold-plated bronze sheets. The circular architrave that embraces the perimeter of the dome counts 8 bronze angels with the symbols of the Passion. An almost life-size statue of the Blessing Resurrected Christ is placed at the top.

This construction stands on a composite-shaped base that includes four steps to access the tabernacle and a complex shape that develops to a height of ca. 10 m with maximum width 6 m. The tabernacle alone, which is placed at its centre, is 2.30 m high with base diameter ca. 1 m. The latter, one of the most precious masterpieces of art, was made in Rome, designed by Pirro Ligorio and cast in bronze on a model by Aurelio, Gerolamo and Lodovico, the Solaro brothers from Lombardy who designed the creation.

There are many references to the Holy Eucharistic, precisely decorations with grape vines and ears of wheat, the life of Jesus depicted in 8 scenes in the lower base, Melchisedech’s offering presented as the first episode narrated, after Prophet Elijah with the bread, the food the angel brought him for his long journey. An actual example of the Counter-Reformation’s new expressiveness.

The ciborium was the source of deep architectural, spatial and artistic inspiration, and became the model for many variations during the subsequent European Baroque period.

The restoration of the ciborium was completed in 2015. All operations concerning metal parts and cleaning were performed by three highly qualified restorers under the guidance of Dr. Stefano Lanuti, owner of Studio Angelucci. Workers from Veneranda Fabbrica’s Construction Site provided a crucial contribution for all that concerned handling and disassembling the various parts.

A Eucharistic Prayer Of Saint Bonaventure

Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee, may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with Thee.

Grant that my soul may hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and super substantial bread, having all sweetness and savor and every delightful taste.

May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of Thy savor; may it ever thirst for Thee, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably.

Amen.

Our God Is A Fabulous God

Can U Imagine This -- There are 80,000 Humpback Whales That Come To Breed and Live Off The Australian Coastline.

Off The Western Australian Coastline there are 45,000 Humpback Whales and Off The Eastern Australian Coastline there are 35,000 Humpback Whales.

Australia is really blessed in more ways than one with a variety of Marine Mammals like Pygmy Blue Whales, Southern Right Whales and Most Importantly Humpback Whales.

Additionally, Off The Brazilian Coastline there are 25,000 Humpback Whales.

Off The South African Coastline in the Western Indian Ocean there are 30,000 Humpback Whales.

This Only Means That Our God is a Fabulous God who blesses us with the best of "MARINE MAMMALS" to appreciate but do we ever take the time to appreciate them. 

Credits : Whale Watch Western Australia and National Geographic

Saint Juan Diego --- A Humble Peasant Who Loved The Blessed Mother

Every weekend, Juan Diego walked nine miles to the nearest church to attend Mass and learn more about his faith. He lived during the Aztec Empire, which practiced human sacrifice to keep the gods happy. When the Spanish arrived, they brought missionaries to convert the people to Christianity but had limited success.

However, Juan and his wife were baptized into the Catholic Faith. They were one of the first Catholic married couples in the New World.

On one of those journeys, December 9, 1531, an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego. His devotion to her and her request led to his canonization in 2002 and the conversion of countless people. As Juan Diego travelled near Tepeyac Hill, he heard an unusually beautiful birdsong. As he reached the top of the hill, a voice called his name and he saw before him a beautiful woman shining like the sun. She told him she was Mary, the mother of the true God as well as his own compassionate mother. She asked him to deliver a message to Friar Juan de Zumarraga requesting the construction of a Shrine on Tepeyac Hill.

Taking a Different Path:

Juan Diego took the request to the friar, but the friar was skeptical and sent him away. Friar Zumarraga was working hard to combat the idolatry of the time and was reluctant to believe the humble Juan Diego.

When he returned to Tepeyac Hill and saw Mary for the second time, he begged her to find someone more respected and important to give the message to the Friar. he said:

“’I am really just a man from the country, I am the porter’s rope … just a tail, a wing’” (Anderson, Sanchez 11).

She replied that she wanted him to relay the message and ordered him to return.

At the second meeting, Friar Zumarraga asked for proof that Juan Diego is in fact carrying a message from the Virgin Mary.  Juan Diego left, confident he could get the evidence needed. When he returned home he found his uncle was very sick and in need of a priest for his final confession. On December 12, Juan Diego set out, wrapped in a tilma to keep warm, and as he passed Tepeyac Hill, he remembered he had to go see the Virgin Mary again. He took a different path, hoping to avoid her but she appeared anyway. He explained that his uncle was dying and promised to return after he found a priest.

The Plain Tilma of Peasants:

Mary comforted him and reminded him of her love.  She told him not worry about his uncle’s illness. She directed him to the top of the hill where he would find flowers to take to the friar as proof. Despite the cold winter weather and the rocky ground, he found the flowers. He gathered them and brought them to Mary who arranged them in his tilma. In his culture, flowers were a symbol of truth.
He returned to the friar but the servants would not let him in. Curious, they asked what he held in his tilma and when he showed them, the flowers suddenly appeared as if someone painted them onto the tilma.

The servants then let him in and when he opened the tilma to show the friar, the flowers spilled out and revealed an image of the Virgin Mary on the fabric. The Friar realized that this was truly a message from God.

It was through Juan Diego’s tilma that Mary gave “a new and elevated dignity to the common person and especially the Indian” (Anderson, Sanchez 19). In that time, only those who were wealthy and noble had decorated tilmas. The peasants wore plain ones.

Exposed and Unblemished :

While Mary was giving the flowers to Juan Diego, she was also visiting his uncle. She healed him from his illness and told him to call her “Holy Mary of Guadalupe.”

On December 26, less than a month after the first apparition, the locals finished building the temple on Tepeyac Hill. Many people, after seeing the tilma in the temple, requested baptism. Often they came from places missionaries had not yet visited.

The tilma has remained intact for 487 years despite nitric acid being spilled on it in 1785 and a bomb exploding near it in 1921. For the first 116 years, the tilma was displayed without any protection, exposed to the saltpeter in the air, humidity, dust, incense smoke and pilgrims touching and kissing it.

No Natural Explanation:

In March of 1666, experts received permission to study the tilma. They could not explain how such a detailed image could be painted on such a rough surface. They determined only God could do this. Later that month, a group of chemists studied the tilma and could not explain how it survived the humidity and the airborne saltpeter. They also noted that the image itself was soft to the touch yet the material was rough and coarse. In the late 1700s, pilgrims made several replica tilmas and placed them near the original. It wasn’t long before they became discolored and fell apart.

As technology developed, experts performed more studies. In 1956, someone took a photograph of the Virgin’s eyes and revealed that the image’s “coloration not only depicts her pupils but also depicts the types of images one would see reflected in the eyes of a living human being – in this case, the reflected images of people” (Anderson, Sanchez 30).

“Even as science has advanced … it has become increasingly clear that there is no natural explanation for the phenomenon of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego’s tilma” (Anderson, Sanchez 30).

The One True Son:

In addition to the tilma’s extraordinary physical qualities is the message embedded in the image itself that would be meaningful to the Aztecs. The blue green cape with stars represents heaven and the flowered dress represents earth. Together they represent the universe. An angel under the moon has eagle wings, not dove wings as is common to European depictions of angels. The eagle was a sacred bird to the Aztecs. Juan Diego’s birth name translates to Talking Eagle.

The angel is holding the cape (heaven) in his right hand and the dress (earth) in his left which tells the Aztecs that the one true son has united heaven and earth, bringing them in harmony.  The black ribbon above her stomach indicated Mary was pregnant, but her hair is worn straight as was customary for virgins in the Aztec culture—reaffirming the virgin birth of Christ.

Scholars have recently discovered the importance of the flowers. The flowers are symbols or glyphs in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. The four petaled jasmine represents the fifth sun god to the Aztecs. On the tilma it is just below Mary’s black pregnancy band indicating that her son, Jesus Christ, is the one true Son. 

Saint Catherine Laboure ---- The Apostle Of The Miraculous Medal

The sound of the evening Angelus bells floated across the fields and vineyards of Burgundy. It was the second day of the month of May in the year of Our Lord 1806. In the little village of Fain-les-Moutiers a child of destiny was coming into the world, a tiny instrument of God, who would one day be the confidante of the Queen of Heaven to usher in the age of Mary. Her name was Catherine Labouré, the ninth child of a family of eleven.

The following day, the Feast of the Finding of the True Cross, the small child was baptized. All her life she was to have a deep devotion to the Cross of Our Lord. It would not be long before she was to feel the weight of sacrifice with the death of her mother at the age of nine.

Early one morning shortly after her mother's death, a family servant came silently upon the little one standing on her tiptoes, stretching upwards, impelled by love, until she reached the statue of the Blessed Virgin. As she held the statue in  her arms and leaned her head against the Madonna, the servant heard the child say: "Now, dear Blessed Mother, now you will be my Mother!"

Catherine received her First Holy Communion at the age of eleven on January 25th, 1818. From that day on, she rose at four o'clock each morning and walked several miles to assist at Mass and to pray for grace and strength before the start of her day's work. Her only desire now was to give herself without reserve to her dear Lord. Never was the thought of Him far from her mind.

By this time Catherine's elder sister, Marie Louise, had left to join the Daughters of Charity, and the little girl who had always been obedient now had to direct and supervise the homestead. She looked after everything: she made the bread, cooked and did the housework, carried daily meals to the workmen in the fields and cared well for the animals.

A Daughter of Charity:

Once, when she was in the village church, she saw a vision of an old priest saying Mass. After Mass the priest turned and beckoned to her with his finger, but she drew backwards, keeping her eyes on him. The vision moved to a sickroom where she saw the same priest, who said: "My child, it is a good deed to look after the sick; you run away from me now, but one day you will be glad to come to me. God has designs for you. Do not forget it!" At that time, of course, she did not understand the significance of the vision.

As is the European custom, Catherine's father invited various suitors to seek her hand in marriage and always her reply was: "I shall never marry; I have promised my life to Jesus Christ." She prayed, worked, and served the family well until she was twenty-two, when she asked her father's permission to become a Daughter of Charity. He flatly refused, and to distract her, sent her to Paris to work in a coffee shop run by her brother Charles. During the entire year spent there, she maintained her resolve to become the bride of Christ.

Her aunt, Jeanne Gontard, came to Catherine's aid and enrolled her in the finishing school she directed at Chatillon. Since Catherine was a country girl, she was miserable at this fashionable school. One day, while visiting the hospital of the Daughters of Charity, she noted a priest's picture on the wall. She asked the nun who he might be, and was told: "Our Holy Founder, Saint Vincent de Paul." This was the same priest Catherine had seen in the vision. Later, after much persuasion from her Aunt Jeanne, her father granted permission for Catherine to enter the convent.

In January of 1830 Catherine entered the hospice of the Daughters of Charity at Chatillon-sur-Seine. This was just after the Reign of Terror in France, where sacrileges were committed in the name of freedom. Licentious women danced on the main altar of Notre Dame. Even the body of St. Genevieve, the Patroness of France, was desecrated. Saint Vincent de Paul's body had been hidden, but four days after Catherine's entry into the Mother House, his remains were transferred back to his own church with joyous processions and ceremonies.

Shortly after her entrance, God was pleased to grant Catherine several extraordinary visions. On three consecutive days she beheld the heart of Saint Vincent each time under a different aspect. At other times she beheld Our Divine Lord during Mass, when He would appear as He was described in the liturgy of the day.

First Apparition:

In 1830 Catherine was blessed with the apparitions of Mary Immaculate to which we owe the Miraculous Medal. The first apparition came on the eve of the feast of St. Vincent, July 19. The mother superior had given each of the novices a piece of cloth from the holy founder's surplice. Because of her extreme love, Catherine split her piece down the middle, swallowing half and placing the rest in her prayer book. She earnestly prayed to St. Vincent that she might, with her own eyes, see the Mother of God.

That night, a beautiful child awoke her from her sleep, saying: "Sister Labouré, come to the chapel; the Blessed Virgin is waiting for you." When Catherine went to the chapel, she found it ablaze with lights as if prepared for Midnight Mass. Quietly, she knelt at the Communion rail, and suddenly heard the rustle of a silk dress. The Blessed Virgin, in a blaze of glory, sat in a chair like that of Saint Anne's.

Catherine rose, then went over and knelt, resting her hands in the Virgin's lap, and felt the Virgin's arms around her, as she said: "God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world."

 

A pained expression crossed the Virgin's face. "Come to the foot of the altar. Graces will be shed on all, great and little, especially upon those who seek them. Another community of sisters will join the Rue du Bac community. The community will become large; you will have the protection of God and Saint Vincent; I will always have my eyes upon you." (This prediction was fulfilled when, in 1849, Fr. Etienne received Saint Elizabeth Seton's sisters of Emmitsburg, MD, into the Paris community. Mother Seton's sisters became the foundation stone of the Sisters of Charity in the United States.)

Then, like a fading shadow, Our Lady was gone.

The Second Apparition:

Four months passed until Our Lady returned to Rue du Bac. Here are Catherine's own words describing the apparition:

"On the 27th of November, 1830 ... while making my meditation in profound silence ... I seemed to hear on the right hand side of the sanctuary something like the rustling of a silk dress. Glancing in that direction, I perceived the Blessed Virgin standing near St. Joseph's picture. Her height was medium and Her countenance, indescribably beautiful. She was dressed in a robe the color of the dawn, high-necked, with plain sleeves. Her head was covered with a white veil, which floated over Her shoulders down to her feet. Her feet rested upon a globe, or rather one half of a globe, for that was all that could be seen. Her hands which were on a level with Her waist, held in an easy manner another globe, a figure of the world. Her eyes were raised to Heaven, and Her countenance beamed with light as She offered the globe to Our Lord.

"As I was busy contemplating Her, the Blessed Virgin fixed Her eyes upon me, and a voice said in the depths of my heart: ' This globe which you see represents the whole world, especially France, and each person in particular.'

"There now formed around the Blessed Virgin a frame rather oval in shape on which were written in letters of gold these words: ' O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.' Then a voice said to me: ' Have a medal struck upon this model. All those who wear it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces especially if they wear it round the neck. Those who repeat this prayer with devotion will be in a special manner under the protection of the Mother of God. Graces will be abundantly bestowed upon those who have confidence.'

"At the same instant, the oval frame seemed to turn around. Then I saw on the back of it the letter 'M', surmounted by a cross, with a crossbar beneath it, and under the monogram of the name of Mary, the Holy Hearts of Jesus and of His Mother; the first surrounded by a crown of thorns and the second transpierced by a sword. I was anxious to know what words must be placed on the reverse side of the medal and after many prayers, one day in meditation I seemed to hear a voice which said to me: ' The 'M' with the Cross and the two Hearts tell enough.' "

The Miraculous Medal:

The Mother of God instructed Catherine that she was to go to her spiritual director, Father Aladel, about the apparitions. At first he did not believe Catherine, but, after two years, approached the Bishop of Paris with the story of the events that had taken place at Rue du Bac. Our Blessed Mother had chosen well Her time for the apparitions as the Bishop at that period was an ardent devotee of the Immaculate Conception. He said that the Medal was in complete conformity with the Church's doctrine on the role of Our Lady and had no objections to having the medals struck at once. The Bishop even asked to be sent some of the first.

Immediately upon receiving them, he put one in his pocket and went to visit Monsignor de Pradt, former chaplain to Napoleon and unlawful Archbishop of Mechlin who had accepted his office from the hands of the Emperor and now lay dying, defiant and unreconciled to the Church. The sick man refused to abjure his errors and the Bishop of Paris withdrew in defeat. He had not left the house when the dying man suddenly called him back, made his peace with the Church and gently passed away in the arms of the Archbishop, who was filled with a holy joy.

The original order of 20,000 medals proved to be but a small start. The new medals began to pour from the presses in streams inundating France and the rest of the world beyond. By the time of St. Catherine's death in 1876, over a billion medals had been distributed in many lands. This sacramental from Heaven was at first called simply the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, but began to be known as the Miraculous Medal due to the unprecedented number of miracles, conversions, cures, and acts of protection attributed to Our Lady's intercession for those who wore it.

In 1841, the most remarkable miracle occurred - the conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a wealthy Jewish banker and lawyer and also a blasphemer and hater of Catholicism. M. de Bussieres, gave him a medal, daring him to wear it and say a Memorare. After considerable persuasion he agreed to do so. Not long after, Alphonse accompanied M. de Bussieres  to the Church of Sant'Andrea delle Frate to make funeral arrangements for a dear friend. There Alphonse saw a vision of Mary as on the Miraculous Medal. He was converted instantly and immediately begged for Baptism.

Alphonse Ratisbonne later went on to become a priest, taking the name of Father Alphonse Marie. Working for thirty years in the Holy Land, he established several institutions. Out of reverence and gratitude to Our Savior, he built the expiatory sanctuary of the Ecce Homo on the spot where Pilate displayed Jesus to the Jews. So great was the love he had for his people, that he dedicated the remainder of his life, as did his brother, Father Theodore, to work for the conversion of their immortal souls. Among the converts of these two priest brothers were a total of twenty eight members of their own family.

Conclusion:

On the last day of 1876, St. Catherine passed to her eternal reward. For the forty-six years from the year of the apparitions until her death, only she and her confessor knew who it was to whom the famous Miraculous Medal was revealed, despite many pressures she received to reveal the secret. 

The years passed by, Catherine performed daily her mundane and very ordinary tasks of sewing and door keeping, unknown to the world around her, which was buzzing with the miraculous effects of the medal. Because of this humility, she is often called the Saint of Silence. When her body was exhumed for beatification 57 years after her death in 1933, it was found as fresh as the day it was buried. 

 Her incorrupt body can still be seen today at the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity in The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, 140 Rue du Bac in Paris.

Venerable Henriette Delille --- A Formidable Catholic Woman Of Color

The last line in Venerable Henriette Delille’s obituary from 1862 sums up her vocation.

Henriette Delille, the obituary reads, “for the love of Jesus Christ made herself the humble devout servant of slaves.”

“In the eyes of the world, Venerable Henriette may not have accomplished much, but in the eyes of God, she did very much,” said Sister Doris Goudeaux, a Sister of the Holy Family and the co-director of the Sisters’ Henriette Delille Commission Office.

Sister Doris is assisting with the canonization cause of Venerable Henriette Delille, who in 1842 founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, a congregation for black women religious headquartered in New Orleans.

Venerable Henriette Delille — who was born a free woman of color in 1812 — and her sisters helped the poor, cared for the sick and instructed the ignorant — free and enslaved, children and adults. They educated slaves in pre-Civil War New Orleans when that was prohibited by law.

“They had to be careful and do some things in secret,” Sister Doris said. “When they were teaching, they would have classes for free people of color in the daytime, and in the evening they would teach the slaves. They would do the same thing for classes in religion.”

Delille and her sisters cared for the sick and dying during a yellow fever epidemic that struck New Orleans in 1853.

They arranged homes for orphans and took in elderly women, opening one of the country’s first Catholic nursing homes.

 “We think she’s a saint. It’s up to the Church now to affirm that,” said Sister of the Holy Family Sylvia Thibodeaux.

“She lived faith, hope and love heroically, and she left that legacy for us to follow,” Sister Sylvia told Our Sunday Visitor. “We’ve tried for over 175 years to carry out that mission by responding to the needs of our time, in the best way we could, and she has served as an intercessor for so many of us.
“We call on her in our time of need,” Sister Sylvia said.

Journey to beatification

Henriette Delille’s cause for sainthood was opened by Archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans in 1988 and unanimously endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1997. Pope Benedict XVI declared her “venerable” on March 27, 2010.

A possible miracle that would have cleared the way for her beatification stalled in 2005 when the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints failed to reach a definitive conclusion about whether her intercession had lead to the miraculous healing of a 5-year-old.

Nearly 15 years later, another alleged miracle — the unexpected healing of 19-year-old Arkansas college student Christine McGee from an aneurysm — has the Sisters of the Holy Family hopeful that their foundress may soon joined the ranks of the “blessed.”

“The student was very sick, and the doctor said she probably wouldn’t make it, but her mother is very devoted to Henriette Delille,” said Sister Doris, who added that McGee’s mother later wrote to the sisters to inform them that she had prayed for her daughter’s recovery through Venerable Henriette’s intercession. She had family members also seek out her intercession.

“The mother told us that she called (Christine) her walking miracle,” Sister Doris said.
The Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, gathered evidence and submitted documentation on the alleged miracle to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which last December issued a decree certifying that the inquiry was done correctly and that the case could continue.

“We’re hoping it’s accepted as a miracle,” said Sister Doris, who added that the beatification Mass would be held in New Orleans.

“It would be much bigger than Mardis Gras,” she said.

Sainthood cause of Venerable Henriette Delille

Venerable Henriette Delille is the first U.S. native born African American woman whose cause for canonization has been opened by the Catholic Church. Her cause was opened in 1988 and endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1997. She was decreed “venerable” in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI. The next step is validation of an alleged miracle, after which she would then be beatified and named “blessed.” A second miracle is needed for sainthood.

Antebellum New Orleans

The New Orleans that Henriette Delille was born into more than two centuries ago was much different than the modern beloved city of jazz, Bourbon Street and the French Quarter.
Free women of color in antebellum New Orleans had limited life choices. Many of them, in essence, became long-term concubines with white European men. Venerable Henriette Delille’s mother was a descendant of her slave ancestor from West Africa. Her father was French.

“Venerable Henriette’s whole background has slavery in it,” Sister Doris said. “Henriette’s mother may have been the first in the family to be born free before her.”

There is some evidence that a teenage Henriette Delille may have had a similar relationship with a white European man of means. In recent archival discoveries, diocesan workers located funeral records for two young boys identified as the sons of Henriette Delille.

“We didn’t find this out until 2004,” Sister Doris said. “The archdiocese was compiling and digitizing their records of funerals and baptisms. A worker came across a death certificate saying the child was the natural child of Henriette Delille. After doing more research, they found another certificate, indicating a second child had been born to her. She probably did have these two children, both of whom died before the age of 3.”

Henriette Delille had not yet been confirmed at that time, so the revelation that she may have had two children out of wedlock did not interfere with the cause for her canonization, Sister Doris said.

A belief and hope in God

When she was 24, Henriette Delille underwent a dramatic religious conversion that she later expressed in a brief declaration of faith and love, one of the few pieces of writing that the community has from her life.

On a prayer book about the Eucharist, Henriette Delille wrote on the flyleaf page her profession of faith in French: “Je crois en Dieu. J’espère en Dieu. J’aime. Je v[eux] vivre et mourir pour Dieu.” (“I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I want to live and die for God.”)

“It’s the prayer we always promote,” Sister Goudeaux said. “We don’t have many writings of hers, but this one, it’s very special.”

One of the few other writings the sisters have of their foundress are the rules and regulations she drew up for the The Sisters of the Congregation of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was described as an organization “of [lay] pious women founded for the purpose of nursing the sick, caring for the poor and instructing the ignorant.”

In the years leading up to founding the Sisters of the Holy Family, Henriette Delille and her companions carried out many apostolic works in the city. They served as witnesses for many marriages and as sponsor for the baptisms of slave and free adults and children.

Henriette Delille lived in community with two lifelong friends, Juliette Gaudin and Josephine Charles. They went on to form the Sisters of the Holy Family, but they still encountered discrimination in the Church and society.

“They were discriminated against by other religious people, other sisters and other congregations. They couldn’t go to any church they wanted to go to,” said Sister Doris, who added that there were many in the Church at the time who doubted that women of color could be celibate.

According to an early journal, the community was very poor, and the sisters made many sacrifices to accomplish their mission.

“People brought them food and old clothes for them to wear, and shoes they could put on when it rained,” Sister Doris said. “They had to beg, and whatever they had, they shared with the poor.”

In the last 20 years of her life, Venerable Henriette Delille overcame numerous obstacles in the forms of social, political and financial opposition in carrying out her religious community’s three-pronged mandate to care for the sick, help the poor and instruct the ignorant.

When she died at age 50, her obituary said that “Miss Henriette Delille had for long years consecrated herself totally to God without reservation to the instruction of the ignorant and principally to the slave.”

More than 175 years later, the Sisters of the Holy Family continue their foundress’ legacy by doing the same corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Seeing her raised to the altars one day would be a poignant moment for many sisters who themselves experienced racism in discerning religious life.

“I’ve been in the community over 60 years. At the time I wanted to become a sister, the Sisters of the Holy Family was the only congregation in Louisiana that I could enter as a woman of color,” Sister Sylvia said.

“It would mean a lot to people of our own race that the Church is affirming that it’s possible for people of color, knowing what we went through in trying to become legitimate in the Church, that one of us could be elevated to sainthood,” Sister Thibodeaux said. “I think it would be inspiring to our people and to all people.”

Credits : Our Sunday Visitor, September 6, 2019