Canonization of MOTHER marie eugenie

New saint has local ties, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, June 3, 2007

Convent revels in founder’s rise

By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
bkush@telegram.com

WORCESTER— They might not be popping open bottles of champagne, but the nuns who reside at the Religious of the Assumption convent on Old English Road will be doing their fair share of celebrating today when Pope Benedict XVI makes their order’s founder a saint.

“We’ve been waiting a very long time for this to happen,” said Sister Francis Terese del Marmol, one of the five nuns who reside at the West Side convent.

Blessed Marie Eugénie Milleret, who was born in Metz, France, in 1817, founded the Assumption order in Paris in 1839.

The Vatican decided last December to canonize Sister Milleret after validating a miracle involving a Filipino child, who, despite the fact that the two halves of her brain were not attached, could walk, talk and generally live a normal life.

Vatican officials found the girl, now 12, suffered no adverse conditions because family members, joined by the order’s nuns, sought Sister Milleret’s intercession.

Doctors, including some at Children’s Hospital Boston, have been unable to explain how the girl, Risa Bondoc, has been able to develop normally, despite her brain abnormality.

“It’s just a wonderful story,” said the 83-year-old Sister Francis, who helps out at the library at Assumption College.

Under Sister Milleret’s leadership, the order she founded grew from a few sisters to a worldwide organization dedicated to the education of young women.

Sister Mary Ann Azanza, the order’s provincial, said Sister Milleret’s vision of a society changed by education and contemplation proved very attractive to young women considering joining the order.

At Sister Milleret’s death in 1898, the sisters numbered about 1,000, toiling in six countries.

Today, while other orders of nuns have declined steeply in membership, there are about 1,300 Religious of the Assumption members working in 35 countries.

In the United States, the Religious of the Assumption ministers in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the dioceses of Worcester and Las Cruces, N.M.

Locally, the nuns minister in a number of ways, including providing classes in English as a second language at St. Peter’s Church in Main South and teaching catechism to Vietnamese parishioners at Our Lady of Vilna Church on Vernon Hill.

Officials said about 5,000 pilgrims, including Sister Mary Ann, plan to attend the canonization, which will take place at St. Peter’s Basilica.

“People have been coming out of the woodwork expressing happiness,” said Sister Francis, who’s been a nun for 50 years.

The ceremonies will be carried live at 4 a.m. by Eternal Word Television Network, with a rebroadcast at noon.

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How You Can Become A:

Worcester pilgrims in Rome

The icon of Marie Eugenie and the crowd

Sr. Cristina bringing up Marie Eugenie's relics to the Holy Father

Assumption Sisters Convent, Worcester