Mother Marie-Léonie Paradis Canada’s newest saint

For the third time, a Canadian has been elevated to sainthood with the Oct. 20 canonization of St. Marie-Léonie Paradis.

Canadian Catholics turned up in force to celebrate the canonization of Quebec-born St. Marie-Léonie Paradis in St. Peter’s Square, with bishops and priests, members of the congregation Paradis founded and devoted laity made the trip to Rome for the special occasion.

All told, approximately 150 pilgrims, the majority from the Quebec Archdiocese of Sherbrooke and the Diocese of St. Jean-Longueil, gathered in the Eternal City for the event.

Fr. Raymond Lafontaine, Episcopal Vicar of the Archdiocese of Montreal, was a concelebrant at the canonization Mass along with St. Jean-Longueil Bishop Claude Hamelin and Bishop Emeritus Lionel Gendron, Nicolet Bishop Daniel Jodoin and Valleyfield Bishop Alain Faubert.

“The Canadian delegation cheered as Mother Marie-Leonie’s name was proclaimed as a saint of the universal Church in the canonization formula near the beginning of Mass,” said Lafontaine.  

Canadian pilgrims participated in an Oct. 19 prayer vigil at the Chiesa Nuova, a lunch reception at the Canadian College after the Mass, a gathering at the residence of the Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See and an Oct. 21 Mass of Thanksgiving. Sherbrooke Archbishop Luc Cyr presided at the prayer vigil and the thanksgiving Mass. 

Sr. Rachel Lemieux, a member of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family — which the newly minted saint founded — and 2011 vice-postulator for the cause for canonization, told the Register that about 40 religious sisters and friends travelled by coach and plane from Sherbrooke to Rome. Another group of pilgrims organized by Spiritours met the Sherbrooke group at the Montreal airport. 

Lafontaine, who has been in Rome for the past several weeks in his role as Synod facilitator, said the “joy of the sisters was palpable as they experienced a dream come true, after much labour and prayer.”

Paradis is only the third canonized saint to have been born in Canada. She joins fellow Quebecers St. Marie-Marguerite d’Youville and St. Brother André Bessette. Born in 1840, Paradis came from L’Acadie, a small town across the river from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. 

The Institute of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family was founded in 1880 in New Brunswick. At the invitation of Bishop Paul Laroque, the mothehouse was transferred to Sherbrooke in 1895.

The formal cause for beatification was opened in 1952 and Mother Marie-Léonie was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1984 in Montreal.

For her canonization, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints accepted the 1986 miraculous healing, attributed to Paradis’ intercession, of a newborn baby from “prolonged perinatal asphyxia with multiple organ failure and encephalopathy.”

Paradis founded her religious community with the stated mission of support for the material needs of priests. That mission developed to the point that the Little Sisters served in seminaries and residences in Canada, United States and Rome. At one time, 30 members of the community were in service at the Canadian College in Rome. The current houses of discernment and formation are in Honduras.

The congregation’s unique charism means that many Canadian bishops and priests are well acquainted with the Little Sisters.

“Having benefited from the generous service of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family both at Saint Paul Seminary in Ottawa and the Cathedral Residence of the Archdiocese of Montreal, I have experienced the joy, kindness and prayerful spirit these women of faith have provided in their material and spiritual support of bishops, priests and seminarians,” said Lafontaine. 

That life of service is reflected in the lives of the sisters who carry on the mission of the order she founded. On the Little Sisters website, it is proclaimed that “What we do for priests, for the Church and for society, we ultimately do for Jesus.” 

Canonized alongside Paradis were eight Franciscan friars and three Maronite laymen martyred in Syria in 1860, Italian missionary Giuseppe Allamano (1851-1926), founder of the Consolata Missionaries, and Sr. Elena Guerra (1835-1914), an Italian nun who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit.

The Pope said all of the new saints lived Jesus' way of service. 

"The faith and the apostolate they carried out did not feed their worldly desires and hunger for power but, on the contrary, they made themselves servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in doing the good, steadfast in difficulties and generous to the end."

The Sherbrooke archdiocese will continue to celebrate with a, Oct. 26 Thanksgiving Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Michael. The Mass will mark the “beginning of an exceptional year of spiritual animation… on the occasion of the long-awaited canonization of Mother Marie-Leonie.”