Mass of Thanksgiving for two new Canadian saints

Hundreds of Canadian pilgrims came to Rome on Sunday to attend a special Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated by Pope Francis for two new Canadian saints: François de Laval, the first Bishop of Quebec, and Marie de l'Incarnation, the founder of the Ursulines in Canada. They were declared saints by equipollent or equivalent canonization in April.

Speaking before the Mass the Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, said the event was "a tremendous occasion for us Canadians."

He said the two pioneers were great models from the early years of the Faith in the country. "They hold up to us the example of how to live our lives, and also, of course, they intercede for us heaven."

In his homily Pope Francis said: "The Church of Quebec is prolific! Prolific in many missionaries, who went everywhere. The world was filled with Canadian missionaries, like these two."

Missionaries, he said, "are those who, in docility to the Holy Spirit, have the courage to live the Gospel." They have gone out into the world to call people to Christ and to the Church. "Missionaries have turned their gaze to Christ crucified; they have received His grace and they have not kept it for themselves."

The Church's mission of evangelization, Pope Francis said, "is essentially a proclamation of God's love, mercy, and forgiveness, revealed to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ." Saint François de Laval and Saint Marie de l'Incarnation were models of the missionary vocation.

To the pilgrims from Canada, Pope Francis offered "two words of advice" taken from the reading from St Paul's Letter to the Hebrews. First, "Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you." The memory of the martyrs, he said, sustains us in a time when vocations are few; their example "attracts us, they inspire us to imitate their faith."

Second, we should "recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings… Do not therefore abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance."

The Pope said that in order to honour those who endured suffering to bring us the Gospel, we must ourselves be ready "to fight the good fight of faith with humility, meekness, mercy, in our daily lives."

"This, then, is the joy and the challenge of this pilgrimage of yours: to commemorate the witnesses, the missionaries of the faith in your country. Their memory sustains us always in our journey towards the future, towards the goal, 'when the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.'"

Among the Canadian pilgrims attending the Mass was the Anglican bishop of Quebec, Bishop Dennis Drainville and his wife Cynthia Patterson. Speaking at a press conference she said St Marie of the Incarnation was "a great role model for women today.".. "She was single working mom...She was widowed at a young age (19) and had a little boy. She had to work to support her family, and her letters are rich in the social history of the women at the time as well as her spirituality."

"She was doing that juggling that we women do," Patterson said. Thirteen years after the death of her husband, she joined the Ursuline nuns and, in 1642, founded the first school for young women in North America.

The bishop and his wife were present at the press conference because the life and works of both saints are also celebrated by the Anglican Church of Canada.