By Marlene Quaroni - Florida Catholic
DORAL | Dina Mitjans was among the hundreds of people who came to venerate a relic of St. John Paul II at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church March 11. She said she believes that he is a special intercessor in her life.
“I had breast cancer in 2004 and haven’t had a recurrence,” Mitjans said. “I owe my good health to St. John Paul II, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary, and Rosa Mística. I have a table in my home with those saints where I pray daily. I pray that St. John Paul II will help me make the right decisions now for my 81-year-old mother.”
The Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a religious order based in Miami, are coordinating the 2017 Great Pilgrimage and Veneration of the relic, a pilgrimage timed to coincide with the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal.
The relic, a vial of the late pope’s blood borrowed from the office of the postulation for his cause of canonization, is displayed in a reliquary shaped like a Book of the Gospels. It resembles the one placed atop the pope’s casket at his funeral in 2005.
In 2015, Mitjans said that she venerated the relic at Immaculate Conception Church in Hialeah and Doral Academy — Our Lady of Guadalupe’s home before the current church was built.
While several people stood in a long line waiting to venerate the saint, Sister Alexia Zaldivar, of the Pierced Hearts, conducted a videotaped interview with Mitjans. They stood next to a statue of St. John Paul II, in a niche beneath a stained-glass window depicting the patroness of the Doral church.
“During the year we will take the relic throughout the United States and to Latin America,” said Mother Adela Galindo, foundress of the order. “We started at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church because of John Paul II’s love for the patroness of Mexico.”
Veneration of relics helps Catholics to come closer to the saints who can be asked to intercede or pray directly to God on their behalf, said Mother Adela.
“Saints are role models who give Catholics an example of how to live the Gospel,” she said. “The relic allowed people to come into contact with the late pope physically as well as spiritually. He saw first-hand what man’s inhumanity to man looked like where he was born and lived in Nazi-occupied Poland. He recognized the dignity in every person.”
The sisters gave each person who venerated the relic a prayer card with a picture of St. John Paul II on the front and “Totus Tuus” (totally yours) — his apostolic motto, which expressed his devotion to Mary — on the back. Many people brought religious items, rosaries, statues, and medals and placed them on the relic.
During the veneration, videos of the saint were shown on the front wall inside the church, and music written for him by various artists was played.
“It’s really impressive to see how much people love John Paul II,” said Mother Adela. “His legacy is a luminous path for the life of the Church. We have a large statue of him in the chapel at our motherhouse. We bought the statue in Rome where it was blessed by a priest beside the saint’s tomb.”
Mother Adela added that she traveled to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. When he died, he was placed in a crypt underneath St. Peter’s Basilica where all popes are laid to rest.
“When he was beatified he was moved up to a tomb in the basilica, near the Pieta,” said Mother Adela. “People always fill the area praying by his tomb.”
FYI
The relic’s next stop in Miami will be Saturday, May 13, feast of Our Lady of Fatima, from 2 to 10 p.m. at St. Michael the Archangel Church, 2987 West Flagler St., Miami, 33135. A procession at 9 p.m. with a statue of Our Lady of Fatima will honor the centenary of her apparitions there.