THE CURE OF ARS AND BLESSED MAGDALENE BARAT

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 8, 4 March 1925, Page 29

THE CURE OF ARS AND BLESSED MAGDALENE BARAT

DECREES FOR CANONISATION APPROVED. A few days after Christmas the Pope presided at a ceremony in the Consistorial Hall of the Vatican, when there was read the decree ,y e tuto concerning the canonisation of the Cure of Ars, Blessed John Baptist Vianney, and the decree on the miracles of Blessed Magdalene Sophie Barat, foundress of the Institute of the Dames of the Sacred Heart. Many of the Cardinals took part in the ceremony, among them Cardinal Mercier.

His Holiness spoke at length, reviewing in particular the work of the Sacred Heart Sisters. The first house of the Order (his Holiness said) was founded at Amiens in 1808 a century later the Order had 142 houses with 6500 religious. The Pope alluded to the severe rule and robust discipline of this Order, recalling the fact that twice were the Sisters dispersed by persecution, once in Germany and once in France. Yet, continued the Holy Father, from these persecutions the Order arose stronger than ever, so that even one of its persecutors had to admit grudgingly that the Sisters had the hearts of lions. The venerable Cardinal Vannutelli, as Dean of the Sacred College, presented the address to the Pope from the Cardinals at the end of the year. Dealing with topics of the day, Cardinal Vannutelli spoke at length on the Year of Jubilee and the Pope's plea for the pacification of the world. "To our heartfelt wishes (concluded Cardinal Vannutelli) let there be also added a

fervent prayer to the Most High, that He will hasten during this Holy Year the pacification so much desired, and the coming of that real and durable peace which your Holiness seeks and desires to see established; of a peace not merely written on the parchments of treaties, but grounded in the hearts and firmly established amongst all peoples—the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."