Canonization plans for Saint Marianne Cope expected soon
There will be two special commemorations of Mother Marianne Cope, on her Monday feast day:
St. Joseph's Hospital, which she helped found, is doing a Monday morning ceremony (9:30am).
The Franciscan Motherhouse on Syracuse's North Side (Grant at Court Streets) is offering a special Mass at 7pm, which will include a new song dedicated to the Syracuse Saint.
Franciscan Sister Grace Dillenschneider, who's been working on the Cause of Mother Marianne, says that visits to the shrine to the saint, also at the convent, have increased. It, and a museum which highlights her time ministering to the leper colony in Hawaii, are open Wednesdays and Saturdays 1 - 5pm.
She points out that people travel long distances, and this shrine is right here, in part because Saint Marianne was so involved in several parts of Central New York: she was raised and worked in Utica, she worked in and made her Franciscan vows at Assumption Church on Syracuse's north side, and she taught in Syracuse, as well as helping to found St. Joseph's Hospital here. She also worked in several other communities in Central New York. Dillenschneider calls her an ordinary woman who did work here--and in Hawaii--in an extraordinary way.
Mother Marianne has been declared a saint, but the formal canonization is yet to come, at the Vatican. The Franciscan sisters expect that will be in either May or October of this year, and they expect to hear the the actual date next month.
