New saints on the way
A young Native American woman, a Philippino teenager and an assistant to Fr Damien the Leper are among seven people who will be declared saints shortly.
In each case Pope Benedict has recognised a miracle that opens the way to canonisation.
Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk, will be the first native American saint. Born in 1656, she lost her parents to smallpox when she was 4.
The disease left her face scarred and it damaged her eyesight, leading to the nickname, Tekakwitha, “the girl who bumps into things.”
Aged 18 she began receiving instruction in the Catholic faith. This led to ridicule from the villagers, and threats to her life. Two years after her baptism she escaped to a settlement of Catholic Indians in Canada.
There Kateri consecrated herself to God and spent her time teaching prayers to children and working with the elderly and sick.
She was renowned for her love of the Mass and her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary.
During her last years she suffered much from illness and in 1680, aged 23, she died.
Pedro Calungsod, 17, a catechist, accompanied some Spanish Jesuit missionaries from the Philippines on a mission to the Ladrone Islands in 1668.
Despite great difficulties, the mission was blessed with many conversions. But a Chinese quack named Choco, prompted by envy, spread the word that the baptismal water was poisonous.
Since some sickly Chamorro infants who were baptised died, many believed Choco’s claims and apostatised.
They then began to persecute the missionaries. In an attack on 2 April 1672 Pedro, while trying to protect a priest, was speared in the chest and then clubbed to death.
Barbara Koob was born into a farming family on 23 January 1838 in Heppenheim, Germany. The following year the family emigrated to the US.
The children attended Catholic school in Utica, New York. In the 1850s they became American citizens, changing the family name to Cope.
Barbara wrote later that she felt a call to religious life at an early age but family obligations prevented her from following it for several years.
As the eldest child, she went to work in a factory to help support the family when her father became an invalid.
Only in 1862, at the age of 24, a month after her father’s death and with the family no longer dependent on her, did she enter religious life.
Having become one of the Sisters of St Francis, and taken the name Sr. Marianne, she served as a teacher and principal in several schools in New York State.
She also helped during the 1860s in establishing two of the first hospitals in central New York.
In time she became superior-general of her order, but in 1883, aged 45, she set out with 6 other nuns for Hawaii to help look after lepers.
The following year she met Fr Damien de Veuster, famous for his work with lepers, on the Hawaiian island of Moloki.
In 1889, after the saint’s death from leprosy, at the age of 49, Mother Marianne volunteered to continue his work on Moloki. She knew it would mean never returning home.
Despite her close contact with the lepers, she never contracted the disease, considered a miracle in itself, and died of natural causes in 1918.
In each case Pope Benedict has recognised a miracle that opens the way to canonisation.
Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk, will be the first native American saint. Born in 1656, she lost her parents to smallpox when she was 4.
The disease left her face scarred and it damaged her eyesight, leading to the nickname, Tekakwitha, “the girl who bumps into things.”
Aged 18 she began receiving instruction in the Catholic faith. This led to ridicule from the villagers, and threats to her life. Two years after her baptism she escaped to a settlement of Catholic Indians in Canada.
There Kateri consecrated herself to God and spent her time teaching prayers to children and working with the elderly and sick.
She was renowned for her love of the Mass and her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary.
During her last years she suffered much from illness and in 1680, aged 23, she died.
Pedro Calungsod, 17, a catechist, accompanied some Spanish Jesuit missionaries from the Philippines on a mission to the Ladrone Islands in 1668.
Despite great difficulties, the mission was blessed with many conversions. But a Chinese quack named Choco, prompted by envy, spread the word that the baptismal water was poisonous.
Since some sickly Chamorro infants who were baptised died, many believed Choco’s claims and apostatised.
They then began to persecute the missionaries. In an attack on 2 April 1672 Pedro, while trying to protect a priest, was speared in the chest and then clubbed to death.
Barbara Koob was born into a farming family on 23 January 1838 in Heppenheim, Germany. The following year the family emigrated to the US.
The children attended Catholic school in Utica, New York. In the 1850s they became American citizens, changing the family name to Cope.
Barbara wrote later that she felt a call to religious life at an early age but family obligations prevented her from following it for several years.
As the eldest child, she went to work in a factory to help support the family when her father became an invalid.
Only in 1862, at the age of 24, a month after her father’s death and with the family no longer dependent on her, did she enter religious life.
Having become one of the Sisters of St Francis, and taken the name Sr. Marianne, she served as a teacher and principal in several schools in New York State.
She also helped during the 1860s in establishing two of the first hospitals in central New York.
In time she became superior-general of her order, but in 1883, aged 45, she set out with 6 other nuns for Hawaii to help look after lepers.
The following year she met Fr Damien de Veuster, famous for his work with lepers, on the Hawaiian island of Moloki.
In 1889, after the saint’s death from leprosy, at the age of 49, Mother Marianne volunteered to continue his work on Moloki. She knew it would mean never returning home.
Despite her close contact with the lepers, she never contracted the disease, considered a miracle in itself, and died of natural causes in 1918.
