NEW BLESSEDS, EXEMPLARY WITNESSES OF CHRIST'S CHARITY

VATICAN CITY, MAY 16, 2005 (VIS) - This morning, the Pope received pilgrims who participated in Saturday's ceremony for the beatification of Mothers Ascension del Corazon de Jesus Nicol Goni, and Marianne Cope. "Exemplary witnesses of Christ's charity," said the Holy Father, "these two new Blesseds help us to better understand the meaning and the value of our Christian vocation."

  Addressing himself particularly to the Dominican Missionary Sisters of the Rosary "who, following the example of their Blessed Foundress help us to experience, in our own time, the spirit of St. Dominic," the Pope said: "Keep alive the experience of the closeness of God in missionary life - 'how close God feels,' Mother Ascension used to say. And keep alive the spirit of fraternity in your communities, always ready to go where the Church most needs you, with the same pioneering spirit that took Mother Ascension to the wild lands of the Vicariate of Puerto Maldonado."

  The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims from that apostolic vicariate and from other areas of Peru, "who saw a precious fruit of genuine evangelization come into bloom, cultivated with special care by female hands." He also greeted pilgrims from Navarre, the area of Spain in which the new Blessed was born, and from other parts of Spain.

  Speaking about Blessed Marianne Cope, he recalled how "in 1862 she entered the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse where she imbibed the particular spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, dedicating herself wholeheartedly to spiritual and corporal works of mercy."

  After explaining how Mother Cope accepted an invitation from the bishop of Honolulu, Hawaii, to work among lepers, Benedict XVI affirmed: "For 35 years, until her death in 1918, our new Blessed dedicated her life to the love and service of lepers on the islands of Maui and Molokai."

  "Undoubtedly the generosity of Mother Marianne was, humanly speaking, exemplary," said the Pope. "Good intentions and selflessness alone, however, do not adequately explain her vocation. It is only the perspective of faith which enables us to understand her witness - as a Christian and as a religious - to that sacrificial love which reaches its fullness in Jesus Christ. All that she achieved was inspired by her personal love of the Lord which she in turn expressed through her love of  those abandoned and rejected by society in a most wretched way."
AC/PILGRIMS BEATIFICATION/...                        VIS 20050516 (410)