Franciscan Saints December

Dec 2. Bl. Maria Angela Astorch
Maria Angela, was born in Barcelona, Spain on September 1st 1592. She joined the Capuchin Poor Clares, at age 11 but had to wait five years to be admitted to the cloister because of her age. A year later she made her solemn profession on the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady of 1609. She was director for those in the beginning of their formation and in charge of the newly professed nuns.
In 1614 with five other nuns, she was sent to Saragossa to start a new monastery. There she was Novice Master. In 1627, Pope Urban VIII approved the Constitutions of the Spanish Capuchin Poor Clares and she was named Abbess for a period of three years. In 1645, she took part in the foundation of the Murcia monastery, and for sixteen years she was in charge of those in their initial formation and abbess of this monastery. In this monastery she succeeded to introduce daily daily Mass. They experienced a very difficult time during the plague, and they were very poor. They had to leave the Monastery for one year, and they moved in temporarily in a summer residence of the Jesuit Fathers. She remained Abbess until the end of her seventieth year. Maria Angela had extraordinary contemplative experience. She had special devotion to the Passion of Our Lord. Maria Angela died at the age of 73 years on December 2nd, 1665. She died while singing "Pange Lingua. Her body is conserved in the Monastery of Murcia in incorrupt state. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 23rd 1982.

Dec 2. Blessed Rafal Chylinski

Blessed Rafal Chylinski was pious youth, his family nicknamed him "the little monk." After graduating the Jesuit college in Poznan, Melchior joined the cavalry, and was made an officer within three years. In 1715, against the advice of his brothers in arms, Melchior joined the Conventual Franciscans in Kraków, took the name Rafal, and was ordained in 1717. He was known for simple and candid sermons, generosity, and as a great confessor. He was born in 1694 at Buk, Poznan, Poland as Melchior Chylinski, and died in 1741 at Lagiewniki, Poland; the Conventual church there became a place of pilgrimage.

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Franciscan Saints December

Dec 15 - Blessed Mary Frances Schervier

"One is as it were rich, when one has nothing; and another is as it were poor, when he has great riches" (Prov 13,7). This passage of scripture fits the servant of God, Frances, who with all her heart espoused holy poverty and thus came into the possession of the grace of God.

Born in 1819, Frances Schervier was a descendant of a distinguished family in the old imperial city of Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle. While she was perhaps not prominent in the eyes of the world, she enjoyed the distinction of extraordinary supernatural privileges from the very days of her youth. Her desire to enter a religious order was thwarted by the early death of her mother in 1832, when Frances was only 13 years old. She was obliged to remain at home and attend to the household. But she did not let these circumstances prevent her from caring in a very special way for the poor and the sick. So lavish was her liberality that one of the old servants once remarked, "One of these days the child will have dragged everything out of the house." Later she was an active member of several benevolent societies of women and also of what was known as St. John's soup kitchen, a charitable enterprise organized to feed the needy.

Frances joined the Third Order of St. Francis in 1844. Henceforth she and four other young women resolved to lead a community life. They found a dwelling at the old city gate of St. James, and took possession of their first religious abode on the eve of the feast of St. Francis in 1845. Prayer and works of mercy were their principal occupation. Mother Frances and her first companions - the number soon increased to 23 -- received the religious habit on August 12, 1851, and a new religious family was formed. Very appropriately she called the new congregation the Sisters of the Poor if St. Francis. The poverty of St. Francis and his love for the poor of Christ superseded everything else in the eyes of the foundress. On one occasion she wrote to her sisters: "The impress of poverty and penance should mark even our chapels and churches and be their distinctive feature."

The first foundation of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis in the United States was made in 1858. Twice Mother Frances came to the US, the first time in 1863 and the second time in 1868. During her first sojourn in this country, she joined here sisters in ministering to wounded soldiers of the Civil War and to the sick, the homeless, and the orphaned. The second time, while visiting the various institutions conducted by her sisters, she also lent a helping hand in caring for the sick, the aged, and the poor.

Mother Frances sacrificed everything for the poor out of love for God, and she was amply repaid by Him who cannot be outdone in generosity. Her foundation increased visibly, and to this day it enjoys the special blessing of Divine Providence. At her holy death on December 14, 1876, Mother Frances was mourned by thousands of daughters in religion as well as by the poor, and was venerated as a saint. Unusual conversions and other remarkable events occurred even during her lifetime in answer to her trustful prayer, and since her departure from this world, such things have happened even more frequently.

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH
We beseech Thee, O Lord, that Thy grace may ever precede and accompany our deeds; let it tend to make us ever mindful of good works. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

from THE FRANCISCAN BOOK OF SAINTS
edited by Marion Habig, ofm
Copyright 1959 Franciscan Herald Press

Used with Permission

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