Oct. 13 (UPI) — Pope Francis canonized five new saints, including a woman who worked as a seamstress, during a mass at the Vatican on Sunday.
The Pope canonized British theologian St. John Henry Newman, Brazilian St. Maria Rita Lopes Pontes, who was known as “Sister Dulce;” Indian St. Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, who founded the Congregation of the Holy Family; St. Josephine Vannini, co-founder of the Daughters of St. Camillus; and Swiss laywoman and mystic St. Marguerite Bays.
“Three of them were religious women. They show us that the consecrated life is a journey of love at the existential peripheries of the world,” he said of the newly canonized saints. “St. Marguerite Bays, on the other hand, was a seamstress, she speaks to us of the power of simple prayer, enduring patience and silent self-giving.”
Pope Frances offered a quote from St. Newman, describing “the holiness of daily life.”
“The Christian has a deep, silent, hidden peace, which the world sees not. The Christian is cheerful, easy, kind, gentle courteous candid, unassuming, has no pretense … with so little that is unusual or striking in his bearing that he may easily be taken at first sight for an ordinary man,” he said.
Amid conflicts between Turkey and U.S. -backed Kurdish forces in Syria, Pope Francis also called for the international community to “sincerely engage, with honesty and transparency, on the path of dialogue in order to seek effective solutions.”
“In particular to the beloved and martyred Syria, from where dramatic news is emerging once again regarding the fate of the people in the northeast of the country, who are forced to abandon their homes because of military action,” he said.
