Canonizzazione Arnold Janssen

Roma 5 Ottobre 2003

Arnold Janssen was born on November 5, 1837 in Goch, a small city of the Low Renania (Germany). Second of ten brothers, he learned from his father to be man of deep religiousness. He was orderly Priest on 15 August, 1861 for the diocese of Münster and received the assignment to teach natural sciences and mathematics in the secondary school of Bocholt, where the fame of demanding however correct teacher was earned.

Few to few in him went growing the worry for the spiritual necessities of the people over the confinements of his diocese, thin to reach a worry for the universal mission of the Church. He decided to devote his life to increase in the German Church the conscience of its own missionary responsibility. With this project in the heart, in 1873 he abdicated the teaching and soon he founded «The small messenger of the Heart of Jesus». With this monthly magazine he offered news from the missions and animated the Catholics of German language to offer more themselves for the missions.

With the support of various Bishops, Arnold inaugurated on September 8, 1875 in Steyl (Holland, because of the anticattoliche laws (Kulturkampf)) the missionary house, and the «Society of the Divine Verb» began. Already on March 2, 1879 the first two missionaries departed for China.

The volunteers that helped in the missionary house were not only men. Already from the beginning a group of women put to the service of the community. Their desire was to serve the mission as religious. This desire, years of loyal service and the conscience of the importance of the woman in the mission, brought Arnold to found the congregation of the «Serves of the Holy Spirit». It was December 8, 1889. The first nuns departed for Argentina in 1895. In 1896, Father Arnold chose some nuns to form a congregation of seclusion, the «Serves of the Holy Spirit of the Perpetual Adoration».

Arnold died on January 15, 1909. His life was a permanent search of the wish of God, of trust in the divine providence and hard job. What his work has been blessed from the Lord, the same development testifies it: more than 6.000 missionaries of the Divine Verb working in 63 Countries, the missionaries Serves of the Holy Spirit are more than 3.800, and more than 400 the Serves of the Holy Spirit of the Perpetual Adoration are.

Pope John Paul II canonized him on October 5, 2003 in Saint Peter Square in Rome.

Canonizzazione Josef Freinademetz (1852-1908)

Roma 5 Ottobre 2003

Joseph Freinademetz was born on April 15, 1852 in Oies, a small village of five houses in the alpis dolomitiche of the north Italy, in Alto Adige. The same day of the birth he was baptized, and from his family learned a simple faith, however at the same time strong.

Already during the studies of theology in the Seminar of Bressanone he began to think seriously to the foreign missions as possibility for his life. Ordered priest on 25 July, 1875 he was destined to the community of St. Martin of Abbey, very next to his native house, where well soon the respect and the affection of the people he was earned. In this whole time however he didn't abandon his restlessness for the missions. After only two years from his ordination, he put in contact with Father Arnold Janssen, founder of a missionary congregation that little time later would have become officially “Society of the Divine Verb”

With the permission of his Bishop, Joseph entered in the missionary house of Steyl on August, 1878. He received the missionary cross on March 2, 1879 and together to another verbita missionary, Father Giovanni Battista Anzer, departed for China. Five weeks later they disembarked to Hong Kong where remained for two years preparing themself to the mission to theirs assigned, that was found in the Shantung of the South, a Chinese province with 12 million of habitants and with only 158 baptized.

In 1898 the continuous job and the lot deprivations presented the check. Gotten sick to the larynx and with a principle of tuberculosis, behind insistence of the Bishop and the brothers, he has to spend one period in Japan in the hope to recover the health. He returned in China better, but not recovered.

When the Bishop in 1907 has to take a trip to Europe, Father Freinademetz has to assume the administration of the diocese. During this period an epidemic of typhus bursted. Joseph as good shepherd, lent his untiring assistance, up to when himself got sick. He immediately returned to Taikia, center of the diocese, where died on January 28, 1908.

He came buried under the twelfth station of the Via Crucis, and his grave soon became point of reference and pilgrimage of the Christians. Pope John Paul II has canonized him October 5 th 2003, in S. Peter Square in Rome.