Pope Francis pays tribute to a beatified nun in Colombia – Swiss Catholic Portal

On the finish of the Angelus prayer on October 30, 2022, Pope Francis spoke of the beatification, the day earlier than in Medellín, Colombia, of Maria Berenice Duque Hencker, founding father of the Little Sisters of the Annunciation.

“His lengthy life, which resulted in 1993, was fully dedicated to the service of God and of his brothers and sisters, particularly the little ones and the excluded,” Pope Francis recalled. He mentioned that he hoped that “her apostolic zeal, which led her to hold the message of Jesus past the borders of her nation, strengthen in everybody the will to take part, by way of prayer and charity, within the dissemination of the ‘gospel all around the world’. As ordinary, Pope Francis applauded the brand new Blessed, who had a long life of 95 years, together with 76 years of spiritual life.

Born in Colombia in 1898 and entered the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation in 1917, she based in 1943 the foundations of what would change into the congregation of the Little Sisters of the Annunciation. After an expertise in 1946 in France, in Excursions, as assistant to the final secretariat of the congregation, she was repatriated to Colombia for well being causes and in 1953 turned the primary superior basic of her congregation, which was formally acknowledged by Pius XII in 1958. .

Her renewal in workplace in the course of the basic chapter of 1966 was nonetheless invalidated by Rome, and she or he then needed to undergo a brand new superior basic. His humility and modesty have been underlined by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, envoy of Pope Francis for the Beatification Mass celebrated on the Cathedral of Medellín.

He additionally recalled her nice closeness to poor kids, whom she thought of “the Lord’s favorites”. The therapeutic in 2004 of a 17-year-old younger man, affected by a critical neurological and gastrointestinal sickness and coming into palliative care, was the miracle chosen for his beatification. The heroicity of his virtues had been acknowledged in a 2019 decree.

The nun was beatified on the afternoon of October 29, in Medellin, by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. The cardinal defined in his homily that in the course of the course of that introduced the nun, née Anna Julia, to the honors of the altars, the theological consultants agreed to outline her as “humble“. (cath.ch/imedia/cv/vatnews/bh)