Father Steven Scheier

Father Steven Scheier on Mother Angelica Live

• How The Other Half Dies

2nd Beatified Couple Called a Gift to Spouses

Cardinal Says St. Thérèse's Parents Can Help Families

LISIEUX, France, OCT. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The second married couple to be beatified together can motivate families to live Christian virtue just as they taught their daughter-saint to desire holiness, says a Vatican official.

This was affirmed by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, retired prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, when he presided over the beatification of Louis Martin and Marie-Zélie Guérin, the parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The couple was beatified Sunday in Lisieux in the presence of some 15,000 people.

The first married couple to be beatified together -- Italians Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who died in 1951 and 1965, respectively -- were beatified in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

Martin (1823-1894) and Guérin (1831-1877) were the parents of nine children, four of whom died as children. After concluding the beatification rite, Cardinal Saraiva Martins gave "thanks to God for this exemplary testimony of conjugal love."

Their example, the prelate assured, can "motivate Christian families in the integral practice of Christian virtues, just as it stimulated in Thérèse the desire for sanctity."

Cardinal Saraiva Martins said that in the moment of the beatification, "I thought of my father and my mother, and in this moment, I would like you to also think in your fathers and mothers, and that together, we give thanks to God for having created us and made us Christians, thanks to the conjugal love of our parents."

Love and loss

The cardinal presented the Martins as "a gift for spouses of all ages because of the esteem, respect and harmony with which they loved each other for 19 years."

He said the couple is also "a gift for parents" and "for all those who have lost their husband or wife."

"Widowhood is always a difficult condition to accept," the cardinal said. "Louis lived the loss of his wife with faith and generosity, preferring the good of his children over his personal preferences."

And, Cardinal Saraiva Martins said, this couples is "a gift for those who face sickness and death. In our world, which tries to hide death, they teach us to look at it face to face, abandoning ourselves in God."

Among those who participated in the ceremony was Pietro Schiliro, an Italian child whose unexplainable cure in 2002 was attributed to the intercession of Martin and Guérin.

Pietro was born with malformed lungs and his family was told he could not survive. His mother asked God for his healing through the intercession of Thérèse's parents and the child was healed.

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Child Cured of Anencephaly Through Intercession of Virgin of Lujan Completely Normal

Buenos Aires, May 5, 2008 / 02:16 pm (CNA).- The Catholic magazine “Cristo Hoy” in Argentina has published an article on a mother who entrusted her daughter to the intercession of Our Lady of Lujan once she was diagnosed with an incurable disease before she was born. The little girl, Lujan, is now three years-old and living a normal life.

Marcela is an eye doctor and mother of three. During the eighth month of her last pregnancy, doctors found her baby to be suffering from anencephaly, a condition in which the brain does not develop normally. Marcela was told her child would die within days of being born.

“When I was being taken into the delivery room, I prayed to the Virgin of Lujan and decided to name my daughter after her and place her into her hands. The Virgin of Lujan appeared in my mind and my heart during those difficult moments and I fervently prayed for my child to her. Thanks to her, I have my daughter with me today and she is just like any other girl her age, smiling and loving those whom she meets. According to the doctors she has a deficient nervous system, but she is nonetheless a normal girl,” Marcela said.

Little Lujan’s case continues to be inexplicable to the doctors who treated her. “They cannot explain the extraordinary improvement of our daughter. Today she is a normal girl except for hemiparesis on her left side,” her mother said.

She said her daughter’s illness has made her family appreciate life more. “I thank God every day of my life for the miracle He did with my daughter,” she said.

“When faced with the blunt reality of a developing baby with problems, everything around comes crashing down, hope fades, negative thoughts take hold, because of how fragile these little people seem to be. But you need to pray for a lot of strength, have hope and through prayer try to overcome this difficult moment,” Marcela stated.

“My message to everybody is that miracles do exist and that God is always with us,” she added. “I can testify to this because I experienced it. I hope that by telling my story I can help others with their faith,” she said.

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The 2nd Miracle of St. Gianna Molla

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