Tom Faranda's Folly

Pope Francis to canonize the 16 Carmelite Martyrs of the French Revolution

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by

Tom Faranda
in

I thought these women had already been canonized.

Here' a short article – the Reign of Terror ended ten days after the Carmelites were guillotined. Hit the link for the whole story.

Their voices sang out from the scaffold as they went to their death on July 17, 1794, during the Reign of Terror, the frightening period of the French Revolution which oversaw the execution of at least 17,000 people.

At the request of the bishops of France and the Order of Carmelites Discalced (OCD), Pope Francis agreed on Feb. 22 to open a special process known in the Catholic Church as “equipollent canonization” to raise the 16 Carmelite martyrs of Compiègne to the altars.

Equipollent, or "equivalent," canonization is, like the usual canonization process, an invocation of papal infallibility where the Pope declares that a person is among the saints in heaven. It avoids the formal process of canonization as well as the ceremony, since it occurs by the publication of a papal bull. 

Longtime veneration of the saint and demonstrated heroic virtue are still required, and though no modern miracle is necessary, the fame of miracles that occurred before or after his or her death is taken into account after study is made by the historical section of the Congregation of the Saints.

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The long-revered martyrs include 11 nuns, three lay sisters and two externs. 

Inspired by the spontaneous action of the lone novice among them — and the first and youngest to die — each of the 16 members of a Carmelite monastery in Compiègne intoned the Laudate Dominum as she mounted the steps up to the guillotine. The convent prioress granted the solemn permission to die to each sister who, kneeling before her just after they kissed the statue of the Blessed Virgin in her hands, mounted the steps of the scaffold. The prioress was the last to die, her voice resounding until the metal seared head and body.

Carmelite martyrs

Comments

One response to “Pope Francis to canonize the 16 Carmelite Martyrs of the French Revolution”

  1. Greg M. Avatar
    Greg M.

    I love this story. Tom, more on how to re-energize our tired Church:
    Franciscan writer Ilia Delio asks whether the Church is stuck in a “machine” stage of change. (To learn more about these stages, read Father Richard Rohr’s description of the “Five M’s”—human, movement, machine, monument, and memory—in Sunday’s meditation.)
    With the rise of modern science, the world machine became the dominant metaphor of the modern era, and the Church adapted its medieval cosmology to the new mechanistic paradigm. . . . Has the Church become mechanistic like so many other world systems? Is it “stuck in a rut,” and if so, can it find its way out of the rut into a new future? Jesus lived with imagination, and he preached with imagination: “Imagine a small mustard seed,” he said. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (Luke 17:6). He aimed to instill imagination in his disciples so they could think the unthinkable and do the incredible. Similarly, it is helpful to imagine the Church in a new way that enkindles us to think the unthinkable and do the incredible. [1]
    Delio writes about open systems, like those found in the natural world, as a model for the Church to reconnect with the dynamism of the gospel. Here she writes about her own call as a religious sister to follow where God was leading:
    I had come to a point of inner freedom where I knew God was calling me to do new things; thus, I was impelled to step out of the comforts of institutional life and, with another Sister, take the risk of living religious life in a new way. I think the term open system best describes our way of life. We live in a working-class neighborhood in DC and financially support ourselves (we pay taxes); if we don’t work, we don’t eat. We discuss the aims of the community together; we try to share responsibilities for the community as much as possible; we pray and play as community, but we respect the autonomy of each person and the work of the Spirit in each life. . . . An open-systems way of life works best on shared vision and dialogue and least on control and lack of communication. Trust is an essential factor, but trust requires kenosis, emptying oneself of control and power, and making space for the other to enter in. . . . An open-systems community, like the physical world itself, is based on relationships, not roles or duties but bonds of friendship, sisterhood (or brotherhood), respect, charity, forgiveness, and justice. Where these values are active and alive, life evolves toward richer, more creative forms, never losing sight that wholeness—catholicity—is at the heart of it. [2]

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