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The Beatification of Ana María Janer AnglarillThe woman that was a role model of “creative charity”. This is one of the definitions that the Prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints Cardinal Angelo Amato, reserved to Ana María Janer Anglarill, Catalan religious elevated to the honour of the altars on Saturday October 8. The beatification ceremony, presided over by the cardinal on behalf of the Pope, took place in La Seu d’Urgell, in the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia. There are men and women whose destiny is to leave behind shiny ‘comets’ of goodness, a trail that never dissolves. Cardinal Amato delivered a eulogy of Janer Anglarill during the Mass and underlined that in the eyes of those that were to become the sisters of the Sacred Family of Urgell, founded in 1859, she gave a concrete token of her inexhaustible consecration for solidarity. “Benedict XVI said that Mother Janer was a ‘strong, humble woman’, profusely merciful towards everyone, especially towards the needy and the sick’. It can be said that in her, the ‘daughter of the Catalan people’, those virtues she drew from her land – like her tireless ability to work, the excellent organizational and governing talents, her amiableness with everyone – are exalted by her great charity towards God and towards others”. Mother Janer did not escape persecution. The Carlist and civil wars that caused death, hunger and plague hit also the Church, which in 1836 was stripped of its religious Orders. The future Blessed nun finished her exile in France, but the love for Jesus that she took as her vow, which she saw in the suffering of the orphans of war, in the young disabled entering the hospitals, continued thriving within her. “The great virtue of charity – the Cardinal observed – was accompanied by humbleness, a small, but indispensable virtue for the true practice of charity”. For the nuns – present today also in central and South America and in Equatorial Guinea, as well as in Spain, Italy and Andorra – Mother Janer Anglarill was a constant encouragement to be “benevolent”, “peaceful”, “docile” and “tender”. “The sisters of the Sacred Family of Urgell today assist with courage and creativity the new poverties of Europe, present in de-structured families, in surging unemployment rates, in the lack of the transcendent meaning of life, in the sterile pessimism that strips the youth of their enthusiasm in the future”. “Blessed Janer – he concluded – is also a compass that guides us towards the needy, that are numerous still today, since today there are also the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the immigrants, and the detainees. The Church is a friend of the needy and her arms are always open for them”.A solidarity bridge to HaitiOn Saturday October 8, during her official visit to Haiti, the queen Sofia of Spain visited the educational centre which the Salesians opened in Gressier, a few kilometres away from the epicentre of the earthquake of 2010. Upon her arrival to the structure the Queen Sofia was received by father Agustín Pacheco, director of the Salesian Missions in Madrid, and by Fr Sylvain Ducange, superior of the Salesian Ispettoria in Haiti. The Queen uncovered a commemorative plate of the visit and cut the ribbon, thus marking the official opening of the formative activities of the centre. The young pupils offered to Sofia of Spain typical dances and chants, such as “Hallelujah Haiti” and “Give me the life”, that express the yearning of all the Haitian population and from which sprung also the reflection of Fr Ducange in his welcoming speech: “Before buildings and homes in ruin, in a country without solid structures, like every visitor you will have immediately noticed that with so many children and youth Haiti is a nation that will never cease shouting, and us with them: NO to death! Yes to life!” Queen Sofia wanted to be near the children and before starting the visit at the pavilions that host the primary and secondary schools she decided to greet one by one all the children that had received her. During the ceremony the pupils offered the Queen a cup of coffee, a small gesture to convey the hospitality of all the Haitian people, that always endeavour to offer the best to their guests, also in difficult times. Also after these inaugurations the work by Gressier is not completely finished. A multi-disciplinary pavilion and an agricultural technical school with four dormitories for the youth that opt for a technical formation are being completed. In his closing remarks Fr Ducange underlined the strong commitment for education that the Salesian Missions are carrying out in Haiti, thanks to the generosity of the Spanish population. “If education is the foundation of development, investing in education means working for a fairer and human world”.
