The Pope will canonize this Sunday, February 11, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Argentine blessed María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, known as ‘Mama Antula’, with the presence of Argentine President Javier Milei. Francisco has assured that ‘Mama Antula’ is a model of “overcoming” in the face of adversity.
“Another message that the blessed gives us in our world today is not to give up in the face of adversity, not to give up on our good intentions of bringing the Gospel to everyone, despite the challenges that this may represent,” she highlighted this Friday. the Pontiff when receiving at the Vatican a group of faithful who have traveled from Argentina for the celebration of the country’s first saint.
The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, is also expected to participate in Sunday’s ceremony, along with a delegation of Argentine ministers and businessmen, although the Vatican has only confirmed that the president will meet with Francis in the private library of the Apostolic Palace on Monday. following.
Reviewing some aspects of his life, the Pope explained that one of his main concerns when the Society of Jesus was suppressed was to “teach the spiritual exercises herself, thus seeking to help everyone discover the beauty of following Christ.”
However, the Pontiff stressed that it was not an “easy” task, due to the “aversion that had been fostered against the Jesuits” and stressed that he was even prohibited from giving the exercises, so he decided to teach them “clandestinely.”
Likewise, he vindicated the charity of ‘Mama Antula’, above all, “in service to those most in need.” A trait that for the Pope is imposed with “great force”, in the midst of a society that runs the risk of forgetting that radical individualism is the most difficult “virus” to defeat.
The Pontiff recalled that the path to holiness involves “trust” and “abandonment” as when Blessed María Antonia “arrived only with a crucifix and barefoot in Buenos Aires, because she had not placed her security in herself, but in God, she trusted that his arduous apostolate was His work. “She experienced what God wants from each of us, that we can discover her calling,” he said.
The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, pointed out in a press conference at the Vatican that for Argentines it is a “very important” fact to have the first Argentine saint and that is why they feel very happy, very joyful and very “challenged.” to live today the notes of Mama Antula’s holiness.
For his part, Vicente Bokalic, bishop of Santiago del Estero, diocese where the future saint was born in 1730, stressed that in recent years they have lived with expectation and preparation for this event that gives them “a lot of joy and heartfelt gratitude.”
In addition, he explained that Mama Antula is “a woman who was born in a very humble and very poor place, but who has a universal reach.”
Finally, Silvia Correale, Italian-Argentine lawyer and first woman postulator in the Vatican, stated that, although “over the years” she has carried out several beatification causes, she feels “very happy” to promote the canonization of María Antonia de Paz and Figueroa. Thus, she specified that in addition to “an important life model”, in Argentina she is considered “the mother of the country.”
The general secretary of the Argentine Episcopal Conference and auxiliary bishop of La Plata, Alberto Bochatey, assured that this time of a synodal, lay Church, of “research on women” and in the year of prayer in preparation for the Jubilee 2025 is a ” wonderful ecclesial context” to highlight the life of this woman.
Bochatey recalled the path that the future saint undertook after the expulsion of the Jesuits from the country in 1767, traveling 4,000 kilometers making her spirituality known. Finally, she founded the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises in Buenos Aires in 1795. In eight years, she got 70,000 people to do spiritual exercises.
The first miracle attributed to ‘Mama Antula’ was the healing of religious sister Vanina Rosa in 1905. The second is the recovery of a man from a stroke also attributed to her intercession.
