On celebrating the Mass of Beatification of young Anna Kolesarova, on September 1, 2018, at Kosice in Slovakia, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, new Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, reminded that one doesn’t improvise a Saint. He gave the figure of the new Blessed as an example for young people.
In his homily, reported by “Vatican News,” the Dicastery’s Prefect affirmed that one “doesn’t improvise heroes or Saints.” He praised the “model of life for young people, so that they may rediscover the beauty of genuine love, as well as the value of purity.”
Anna Kolesarova was killed at 16, on November 22, 1944, by a Soviet military man who wanted to abuse her. However, “She arrived prepared for martyrdom thanks to her strong spiritual life, nourished by daily prayer and the frequentation of the Sacraments,” recalled Cardinal Becciu.
The Prefect, who was celebrating his first Mass of Beatification, also recalled the women who were victims of violence during World War II as well as today. “Sadly rape is considered a weapon of war; it remains unpunished, without being recognized as a crime against humanity. But this violence is again perpetrated on women even in our civil Europe, where the murder of women continues to prosper and a woman’s body is often the object of the unworthy trade of the human person.”
“We are all aware that it’s indispensable to protect Creation, to work in favor of the purity of the air, of water and of food. But it’s also and perhaps even more necessary to protect the purity of what is most precious to us: our hearts and our interpersonal relations,” continued the Cardinal.
“The martyrdom of virginity continues to witness the strength of the love of God and for God, love that always prevails over man’s wickedness,” he concluded.
