A través de los siglos: Siervo de Dios Cardenal Rafael Merry del Val

Rafael Merry del Val nació en Londres en 1865, hijo de un diplomático español y de una madre inglesa. Su educación cosmopolita fue una buena preparación para una carrera como diplomático vaticano. Tras estudiar en la Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana, fue ordenado sacerdote el 30 de dic. de 1888. A los 38 años fue nombrado cardenal y designado Secretario de Estado de la Santa Sede por el Papa Pío X y, además, junto a sus funciones oficiales, llevó a cabo un activo apostolado con niños y jóvenes en el barrio de Trastévere de Roma. Cuando murió el Papa Pío X, su sucesor nombró a un nuevo Secretario de Estado y trasladó al cardenal del Val a un puesto menor en el Vaticano, un cambio que aceptó sin quejarse. Aunque a menudo se le describe como el autor de la Letanía de la Humildad, no está claro si realmente compuso la oración o si solo promovió su uso.

El Cardenal Merry del Val murió en 1930 a los 64 años, y su causa de canonización se abrió en 1953. El 13 de octubre de 2025 se celebró una reunión en el Vaticano para conmemorar el 160.º aniversario de su nacimiento. Reflexionando sobre la vida del cardenal, el Papa León XIV dijo a los participantes que “estaba presente entre los niños y los jóvenes de Trastévere, a quienes catequizaba, confesaba y acompañaba con bondad. Allí fue reconocido como un sacerdote cercano, padre y amigo. Esta doble dimensión —la de diplomático de gobierno y la de pastor accesible— es lo que le da a su figura una riqueza particular, porque supo combinar el servicio a la Iglesia universal con una atención concreta a los últimos entre nosotros”.

Iglesia de hoy: Sierva de Dios Ruth Pakaluk

Ruth Pakaluk era oriunda de Nueva Jersey y fue criada en un hogar nominalmente cristiano. En la escuela secundaria, era una consumada en música, una atleta destacada y una estudiante extremadamente brillante, pero la fe no desempeñó ningún papel en su vida. Para cuando comenzó sus estudios en la Universidad de Harvard, era una atea a favor del derecho a decidir. “Tenía una especie de vena contracultural”, recordó su esposo Michael Pakaluk. “Solía juntarse con sus amigos en las vías del tren, vistiendo una chaqueta del Ejército”. Pero después de que ella y Michael se casaron mientras ambos eran estudiantes en Harvard, ambos comenzaron una exploración de varias iglesias cristianas que terminó en su conversión a la Iglesia Católica.

La pareja tuvo siete hijos, y mientras criaba a su familia, Ruth también se convirtió en una activista provida que trabajó en las campañas políticas de candidatos provida. Se desempeñó como presidenta de Ciudadanos por la Vida de Massachusetts y en 1998 recibió el premio Madre Teresa Pro-Vida de la Oficina de Respeto a la Vida de la Diócesis de Worcester. Se convirtió en una conferencista solicitada e invitada en muchos programas de radio y televisión, a menudo debatiendo con otros sobre el tema del aborto. También estuvo muy activa en su parroquia, enseñando educación religiosa y organizando grupos de oración para mamás y sus hijos.

A los 33 años, a Ruth le diagnosticaron cáncer de mama y se sometió con éxito a tratamiento. Varios años después, sin embargo, los médicos descubrieron que el cáncer se había metastatizado a sus huesos, lo que condujo a un diagnóstico terminal.  Vivió sus años restantes al máximo, manteniéndose activa hasta el último momento posible. Ruth murió a los 41 años el 23 de septiembre de 1998. El Vaticano aprobó la apertura de su causa de canonización el 29 de septiembre de 2025.

Modelo a seguir para la juventud: San Carlo Acutis

Carlo Acutis nació en Londres en 1991 y creció en Milán, Italia. Aunque no fue criado en una familia religiosa, mostró amor por Dios y la fe católica desde temprana edad, afirmando que su meta era llegar a ser santo. “Siempre decía: ‘Quiero agradar a Dios’, dijo su madre, Antonia Salzano. Después de recibir su Primera Comunión a los siete años, escribió: “Estar unido con Dios: este es mi programa de vida”. Y mantuvo esa promesa durante toda su vida, hasta el final, dijo su madre.  Antes de su muerte por leucemia en 2006 a los 15 años, Carlo era un adolescente promedio con una habilidad para las computadoras por encima del promedio. Usó ese conocimiento para crear una base de datos en línea de milagros eucarísticos de todo el mundo. Aunque Salzano recuerda vívidamente la devoción de su hijo a Jesús y a la Virgen María, y su cuidado por los pobres, incluyendo usar su propio dinero para comprar sacos de dormir a las personas sin hogar, también lo recuerda como un adolescente normal que disfrutaba de la vida. “Le encantaba el fútbol, le encantaba el baloncesto, le gustaban los animales, le gustaba jugar. Muchos amigos lo querían mucho porque siempre estaba bromeando, haciendo películas”, recordó ella. “Pero en el centro de su vida estaba Jesús; tenía un encuentro diario con Jesús a través de la santa Misa, la adoración eucarística y el santo rosario. Esto era característico (de Carlo). Y cuando abres la puerta de tu corazón a Dios, tu vida ordinaria se vuelve extraordinaria”. San Carlo fue canonizado el 7 de septiembre de 2025, por el Papa León XIV. Su cuerpo está expuesto en un santuario en Asís, Italia.

Letanía de la Humildad

En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.

Jesús manso y humilde de Corazón, óyeme. hear me.

Del deseo de ser lisonjeado, líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser alabado, líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser elsalzada, líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser honrado, líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser aplaudido, líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser preferido a otros, líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser consultado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del deseo de ser aceptado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser humillado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser despreciado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser reprendido,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser calumniado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser olvidado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser puesto en ridículo,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser injuriado,  líbrame Jesús.

Del temor de ser juzgado con malicia,  líbrame Jesús.

Que otros sean más amados que yo,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

Que otros sean más estimados que yo,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

Que otros crezcan en la opinión del mundo y yo me eclipse,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

Que otros sean alabados y de mí no se haga caso,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

Que otros sean empleados en cargos y a mí se me juzgue inútil,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

Que otros sean preferidos a mí en todo,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

Que los demás sean más santos que yo con tal que yo sea todo lo santo que pueda,  , Jesús dame la gracia de desearlo.

En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.

St. Josaphat

St. Josaphat was a 16^th-century priest who urged Ruthenian Christians in Ukraine to reunite with the Roman Catholic Church. He was appointed Bishop of Vitebsk and Polotsk at a relatively young age, where he continued to encourage union with Rome even though the idea was not popular among the local clergy. He lived the virtues of poverty and chastity to a heroic degree, selling his own vestments to care for the needs of the poor. By refusing to align himself with one political party, however, he was seen as a threat, and a plot was hatched to drive him out of the diocese. He was killed by a mob and his body thrown into a river. However, it was later recovered and is now buried in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He was the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized.

St. Francis de Sales

St. Francis de Sales was born in the Savoy region of France in 1567. His family was part of the aristocracy, allowing him to receive an education in rhetoric, the humanities and law. He seemed destined for a career in politics, but he secretly made a vow of celibacy. Against his father’s wishes, he was ordained a priest in Switzerland in 1593 and set out to bring the country back to the Catholic faith. He traveled throughout the country preaching and disseminating religious tracts. As many as 70,000 Swiss Calvinists returned to the Church through his efforts. In 1602, he was named Bishop of Geneva, devoting the rest of his life to restoring the city’s churches and religious orders. Under his direction, the future St. Jane Frances de Chantal founded the Visitation order. His book “Introduction to the Devout Life” has become a spiritual classic. St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of writers and journalists. His feast day is celebrated on Jan. 24, which falls during the Octave for Christian Unity that takes place each year from Jan. 18-25.

Servant of God Michelle Duppong

Michelle Duppong was born in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, in 1984 but grew up in Haymarsh, North Dakota. She attended North Dakota State University and graduated in 2006 with a degree in horticulture. She then spent six years as a missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) at four college campuses, where she influenced hundreds of young people and played a role in helping some of them discern vocations to priesthood and religious life. In 2012, she became the Director of Adult Formation for the Diocese of Bismarck, and the following year she organized the diocese’s first Thirst Eucharistic Conference. In 2014, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer that required major surgery and chemotherapy. She died on Christmas Day in 2015 at age 31. Duppong is remembered for her intense spirituality, deep piety and deep concern for others, even as she suffered with cancer. Several women who have sought Duppong’s intercession for infertility have become parents. On Nov. 1, 2022 Bishop David Kagan of Bismarck opened Duppong’s cause for canonization. More information can be found at michelleduppongcause.org/the-cause.

In 2025, the Catholic Church celebrated the 1700^th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, an ancient city which is lies in ruins in modern-day Turkey. The bishops who had gathered in Nicaea in 325 A.D. had survived anti-Christian persecution but were facing the fracturing of their communities over disputes regarding "the essence of the Christian faith, namely the answer to the decisive question that Jesus had asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi: 'Who do you say that I am?'" One source of division was a heresy spread by Arius, a priest from Alexandria in Egypt, who taught that Jesus was not truly the Son of God but rather an “intermediate being between the inaccessible God and humanity.” To counter this erroneous teaching, the bishops wrote a new creed, which is recited by most Catholics at Mass each Sunday and shared with other mainline Christian churches, called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It includes an article of faith inserted by the bishops at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 about the Holy Spirit. Western Christians say: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets." In his apostolic letter “In Unitate Fidei,” which he wrote for the council’s anniversary, Pope Leo XIV said that the phrase known as the "filioque" — “and proceeds from the Father and the Son” — "is not found in the text of Constantinople; it was inserted into the Latin Creed by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014 and is a subject of Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.” Recent popes, including Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis and Pope Leo, have omitted the phrase at ecumenical prayer services. In his letter, Pope Leo affirmed the Catholic Church's commitment to the search for Christian unity and said, "The Nicene Creed can be the basis and reference point for this journey." The complete text of Pope Leo’s apostolic letter can be found at: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/apost_letters/documents/20251123-in-unitate-fidei.html

Servant of God Julia Greeley

Julia Greeley is known as Denver’s “Angel of Charity.” She was born into slavery in Hannibal, Missouri, between 1833-1848. Her right eye was destroyed by the whip of a slave master. Julia was freed after the Civil War in 1865 and found employment with Julia Pratte Dickerson, a St. Louis widow. When Mrs. Dickerson married Colorado Governor William Gilipin, Julia also went West to serve the household. Julia converted to Catholicism in 1880 and attended Sacred Heart Parish in Denver, a Jesuit parish that was established in 1879. She became a Third Order Franciscan and devoted herself to charitable works and spreading leaflets from the Sacred Heart League, especially to the poor and to Catholic firemen. She also delivered groceries, coal and other essentials to those in need, regardless of race. When Julia died in 1918, hundreds of people flocked to Sacred Heart Church for her funeral. In 2016, her cause for canonization was opened and her mortal remains were transferred to the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver. She is the first lay person to be interred at the cathedral.

Venerable Emil Kapaun

Father Emil Kapaun was a native of Pilsen, Kansas who was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Wichita in 1940. He joined the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps in 1944 and served as a chaplain in both World War II and the Korean War. He celebrated Mass for soldiers in all conditions, even while under fire. In 1950, he was captured during the Battle of Unsan by Chinese forces and put in a prison camp. While imprisoned, he ministered to fellow POWs, provided medical assistance and stole food to help alleviate their starvation. He succumbed to malnutrition and pneumonia on May 23, 1951, in the Pyoktong prison camp. In 2013, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on the battlefield. It is the United States' highest military honor.

But Father Kapaun’s story does not end there. In 2003, a Korean war veteran, William Hansen, visited a VA medical clinic in Naples, Florida, and stumbled upon a copy of the Knights of Columbus magazine, Columbia, that featured an article about Father Kapaun. Hansen immediately recognized the beloved chaplain and recalled burying him in the prisoner-of-war camp. His testimony then became a significant factor that led to the eventual discovery and identification of Father Kapaun's remains in Hawaii. Seventy years after his death, a U.S. government forensics team — the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency — announced March 4, 2021, that it had identified his remains among those of unidentified soldiers long interred in Hawaii at the Punchbowl's National Cemetery of the Pacific. His remains were transferred from Hawaii to the Diocese of Wichita, where they were then taken as part of a procession to his hometown church in Pilsen, Kansas. There, the family was finally able to have a funeral Mass with Father Kapaun’s body present. His casket was interred in a tomb at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Wichita.

During the funeral vigil, a portion of a letter Father Kapaun wrote to his cousin was read: "I have a feeling that I am far, far from being a saint worthy to receive the Priesthood. Think what it means!! To offer up the Living Body and Blood of Our Savior every day in Holy Mass — to absolve souls from sin in Holy Confession and snatch them from the gates of hell."

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in 1901 in Turin, Italy. His father Alfred was a newspaper businessman and politician who served as an Italian senator and ambassador to Germany. Even as a child, Pier Giorgio was engaged in Catholic groups and sought to receive daily Communion. . Fortified by a robust prayer life rooted in Marian devotion and the Eucharist, at age 17 he joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to care for the poor and the wounded soldiers returning home from World War I. He was known for giving money and his possessions to people in poverty, and even skipped vacations to the family's summer home, saying, "If everybody leaves Turin, who will take care of the poor?"

His concern for marginalized and downtrodden people would persist throughout his short life. It influenced his decision to study mining engineering at Royal Polytechnic University of Turin, with the aim of ministering among the miners. Although he was smart, his studies suffered because of the amount of time he dedicated to helping the poor and political activism. In 1919, he joined Catholic Action, which promoted the church's social teaching, especially as articulated in the 1891 encyclical "Rerum Novarum," promulgated by Pope Leo XIII.

Two years later, he helped to organize in Ravenna the first Pax Romana conference, which aimed to unify Catholic university students to work for worldwide peace. In 1922, he joined the Lay Dominicans, also known as the Third Order of St. Dominic, choosing the name "Girolamo" after the fiery 15th-century Dominican preacher in Florence, Girolamo Savonarola.

Throughout his young adulthood, he was an avid outdoorsman and enjoyed skiing and mountaineering, art and music, and poetry and theater. He regularly gathered together his friends and was known to be a practical joker, shortening his friends' bedsheets and waking them with trumpet blasts, ultimately earning the nickname "Fracassi," as in "fracas" — a noisy disturbance.

Frassati also engaged in actual fistfights for his faith-based political convictions -- on more than one occasion -- in scuffles with Communists, Fascists and crowd enforcement during activist rallies.

Amid his studies, social life and political activism, Frassati continued to take seriously his spiritual life, charitable works and evangelistic efforts, wasting no opportunity to invite his friends to join him in prayer, Scripture reading or at Mass.

In late June 1925, Frassati began to experience symptoms of polio, likely contracted while visiting Turin's sick and poor. As his suffering worsened, his mind was also on his friends and the poor. He implored his sister, Luciana, to deliver medicine and other promised items to those in need whom he regularly visited. She recounted this in her book "My Brother Pier Giorgio: His Last Days."

Pier Giorgio Frassati died July 4, 1925, at age 24, and his funeral was attended by hundreds of his city's poor, revealing to many, especially his family members, the fullness of his charity. He was initially buried in the family crypt in the nearby city of Pollone, but his body was moved to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin after his beatification in 1990. At Frassati's beatification, St. John Paul II described him as a "man of the beatitudes."

“To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or “city”. The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations, in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God.” — Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI, June 29, 2009.