DECLARE A SAINT

Opunake Times, 26 January 1934, Page 3

DECLARE A SAINT

VISIONARY OF LOURDEB CANONISATION CEREMONY. With all the traditional* solemnit, the Blessed Bernadette Soubirous, the shepherdess and visionary of Lourdes, was canonised at Home last month.

The ceremony drew a vast eoncourse of the .faithful to St. Peter's. During- the last two 0? three days special trains have brought 'more than 20 bishops and thousands of pilgrims from abroad, mainly of course, from Fiance, but to* these foreign visitors were added thousands oi Italians. , The comparatively recent death of Bernadette Soubirous —she died at Nevers in 1879—gave to the ceremony a vivid and living touch which is absent from many canonisations. Although the brother of the new sint, who had been present at his sister's beatification in 1925, has since died, there were present more than a score of representatives of he* family. There were among_ the large" delegation of sisters from Nevers not a few who had been there with her as colleagues or as her pupils. Among those present who had obtained relief from their sufferings at Lourdes was the vigorous and active Mgr. Lemaitre, Arch. bishop of Carthage, one of the two people whose miraculous cure from an apparental fatal illness formed the principal basis for the ceremony. The miracle which healed Mgs. Lemaitre of a tropica] disease on August 3, 1925, almost immediately after the beatification of Bernadette Soubirous, was depicted on one of the two painted standards which, in accordance with custom, depended from the loggias overhanging tne statues of St. Veronica and St. Helean. Magnificent Spectacle.

The interior of St. Peter's had been decorated with all the sumptuous splendour proper to such an occasion. Aloie than 13,000 electric candles, distributed among hundreds of candelabra and brackets combined to bathe the whole basilica in a sea of light. From 9 o'clock, when the Pope was borne into the basilica amid the dignataries of the church and of the Papal Court in gala uniform, to the moment, four hours later, when his Holiness was again borne out of the church, solemn function followed its prescribed course. Litanies and hymns and prayers succeeded one another until the Pope, accepting the triple petition of the Cardinal Procurator, invited the princes of the church and other prelates to rise to their feet while he pronounced the formula of canonisation. A few minutes later the "(jrloria''' of the new saint, which had been hung from the outer loggia of the basilica, was uncovered and the pealing of the bells announced that the humble shepherdess or Lonrdes had taken her place among the most venerated names of the Poman Catholic Church. lief ore concluding the ceremony the Pope announced that the "festa" of the new saint would be April 1, the day of her death.