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The canonisation of St Claude 1992 On 6 June 1991 the medical board of the Congregation of Saints at Rome declared unanimously that the cure of Fr. John Houle S.J. of Los Angeles could not be explained naturally. Fr. Houle had been seriously ill with pulmonary fibrositis, and many people, including Fr. Parrish, his Superior and Director of the Apostleship of Prayer for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, had been praying for his recovery through the intercession of the then Blessed Claude. On Friday, 23 February 1991, it was judged that Fr. Houle was nearing the end. Fr. Parrish blessed him with a relic of Blessed Claude and asked a number of people to pray to Blessed Claude for Fr. Houle. By Monday 26 February he had made a remarkable recovery. Subsequent X-rays indicated the cure of his lungs. On 14 January of the following year it was announced that Pope John Paul II would canonise Blessed Claude on 31 May 1992. This was a source of great satisfaction to Fr. Peter Gumpel, the Postulator of the Cause, although he considered the canonisation long over-due. He was well aware that Claude had been due for canonisation over two centuries earlier at a time when four miracles were required for canonisation. All four had been approved before 1773 (today one miracle is sufficient for beatification and another one, in the period after beatification, for canonisation), but, with the suppression of the Jesuits in that year, the canonisation of one of their members was out of the question. As a consequence of this development all the documentation was jettisoned. No holding back The motto of the La Colombière family was sans reserve (without reserve). Claude, under divine inspiration, made this the project of his own life: “to give himself completely to God”. This was in line with the prayer attributed to St. Ignatius:
Claude was canonised because in him, in the last years of his short life, there was “no holding back”. |