He Pope Francisco received in the Vatican to a group of Argentine pilgrims who will participate on Sunday in the canonization ceremony that will make María Antonia de San José de Paz y Figueroa the first saint of the country. The mass will begin at 9:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m. in Argentina) in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“I greet my brother bishops from Argentina, and all the priests, men and women religious and faithful who accompany them,” said the Pontiff to 150 faithful who were this Friday in the Clementine Room of the Vatican Apostolic Palace.
Francisco’s praise for Mama Antula
About Mama Antula, Francisco asked to take his example in “the option for the last“and highlighted his work in”charity“, especially in the service of those most in need “in the midst of a society that runs the risk of forgetting that radical individualism is the most difficult virus to defeat,” he added.
At a hearing attended by Governor of Santiago del Estero, Gerardo Zamoraand the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge García Cuervaamong others, the Dad He said that “in this blessed woman we find an example and inspiration that revives the option for the last, for those that society discards and discards.”
He Supreme Pontiff He continued with the praise and stressed again that his example helps “be that sign of love and tenderness between our brothers“In addition, he recalled that the path of holiness involves trust and abandonment, “like when Blessed María Antonia arrived only with a crucifix and barefoot in Buenos Aires, because she had not placed her security in herself, but in God,” he maintained. .
Finally, the Dad He stressed that this is another message from Mama Antula about “not surrender to adversity and not give up on our purposes of bringing the Gospel to everyone, despite the challenges that this may represent.
Among the pilgrims to whom he expressed the message was Claudio Perusini, the man who recovered from a stroke with the miracle attributed to the new saint and the singer Manuel Wirtzresponsible together with the artist from Santiago Leo Dan from the official anthem to Mama Antula.
Pope Francis will make Mama Antula a Saint
Mama Antula was born in 1730 and was the founder in Buenos Aires of the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises in Buenos Aires. He died on March 7, 1799, and his remains currently rest in the church of Our Lady of Mercyfrom the City of Buenos Aires.
On Sunday, he will become Santa after hePope Francis will approve a miracle attributed to her “intercession” in the healing of Perusini, who recovered from an “ischemic stroke with hemorrhagic infarction in several areas, deep coma, sepsis, resistant septic shock, with multiple organ failure” thanks to the intercession of the consecrated laywoman.
In 2010, Benedict XV had taken the first step towards the beatification of María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa while in 2016 she had been beatified in Santiago del Estero.
For its part, Francisco has already converted the Argentine José Gabriel “priest” Brochero into Saintsin 2016, and to the Italian-Argentine Artemides Zatti in 2022.
Source: Ambito
