May 29, 2022 - "Five More Saints"

Last week I talked about five of the ten blesseds who were canonized by Pope Francis on May 15, 2022.  Today we will look at the other five recently canonized saints.
 
Saint Anna Maria Rubatto was born in 1844 in Italy.  After both of her parent had died by the time she was nineteen, she moved to Turin where she became the friend of noblewoman Marianna Scoffone.  Rubatto helped Scoffone with teaching catechism and visiting the poor and the sick.  Scoffone died in 1882.  One morning after Mass a stone fell from the construction site and struck a worker. Rubatto helped the worker, and the sisters of a convent close to the incident noticed what had happened.  The sisters took it as a sign that Rubatto was the person they needed to lead them.  They convinced a local priest to convince her to join them.  Rubatto did so.  After she had entered the community, the bishop appointed her as the superior of the convent.  The community became known in time as the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto.  She and her sisters traveled to Uruguay in 1982 and engaged in missionary work there and in Argentina.  Mother Rubatto contracted cancer while in Montevideo, Uruguay, died there in 1904, and was buried there in accordance with her wishes. Pope Saint John Paul II beatified her on October 10, 1993.
 
Saint Maria Domenica Mantovani was born in Italy in 1862.  While she was still a teenager her pastor and spiritual director encouraged her to visit the sick and teach catechism.  In time she became the co-founder and first superior general of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family.  She led the congregations for a total of four decades. She died in 1934 because of complications from influenza.  She was beatified on April 27, 2003 by Pope Saint John Paul II.
 
Saint Titus Brandsma was born in the Netherlands in 1881 and entered the Carmelites in 1908.  Ordained in 1905, he was sent to Rome for further studies and while in Rome he became the correspondent for several Dutch newspapers and magazines.  When he returned home he was an educator and founded the magazine Karmelrozen.  In 1935 he was named chaplain to the Dutch Catholic journalists’ association.  During World War II, he was arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Dachau for treason because he had defended Jews and encouraged Catholic newspapers not to print Nazi propaganda.  He was killed with a lethal injection at the camp in 1942 at the age of 61 and cremated at the camp.  He was beatified on November 3, 1985 by Pope Saint John Paul II.

Saint Anne-Marie Rivier was born in France in 1768.  Just before the French Revolution she established a school only to see it confiscated shortly afterward.  The end of the revolution allowed her to resume her educational activities and to establish the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary to care for the education of orphans and other children who needed education.  She died in 1838.  The beatification process for her began in 1853 by Blessed Pius IX who referred to her as the Woman-Apostle, while naming her a Servant of God.  She was beatified on May 23, 1982 by Pope Saint John Paul II.
 
Saint Carolina Santocanale was born in Italy in 1852.  When she was nineteen she was called to the side of her ailing grandfather who died shortly after she arrived.  She became the target of marriage proposals but turned these down.  She was torn between entering a contemplative community and one involved in working with the poor and sick.  She solved by becoming a Secular Franciscan.  In time she established the Capuchin Sisters of the Immaculata of Lourdes on December 8, 1909.  Carolina died a week after her order had been approved by the Archbishop of Palermo.  She was beatified by Angelo Cardinal Amato on June 12, 2016.
 
May our newly canonized saints pray for all of us!
 
Until next week,
Fr. John