THE NIGHT SKY

 

While the rest of the world is having heat waves, tornadoes, flooding rains, and generally miserable weather, our summer in the islands has been cool and lovely, for which we are truly grateful.

Photo of the night sky, August, 2026  by my God-daughter Amie Hood Garabaldi

A TRUE SHEPHERDESS

 

To start a new month, I want to highlight a Catholic textile artist I recently came across.  I happen to live in a part of the world- small thought it may be- where there are many talented women ( and even men) who work in wool, be it spinning (which I used to love to do), weaving, or some aspect of textile art.  I have always been envious of those who can transform raw wool into some beautiful form of art.

HOLLY GUERTIN is a fiber artist and textile designer based outside of Philadelphia with her husband and four sons. She grew up in suburban North Carolina and studied fibers at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

In the Catholic faith, Holly has found a rich language, artistic precedent, and treasure trove of theological concepts to deepen her understanding of wool and sheep and their window to the sacramental worldview.  Her lamb art is so realistic one feels as if they could touch the art and the lambs would hop off.

 When she was a freshman in college at SCAD, she happened upon an open studio event at the fibers department. 

“The artworks and projects I saw in the building were some of the most interesting Iʼd ever seen, and once I saw the variety of careers that were possible with a fibers degree, I changed my major from fashion to fibers and never looked back.

In the fibers program, I learned everything that goes into cloth making (such as knitting, weaving, and felting) and cloth decoration (such as dyeing, screen printing, and embroidery). I never tried a technique I didnʼt like.”

In her sophomore year, she discovered “the power of my hands to transform wool into felt, my eyes were opened to a sacramental worldview. Especially because I was working with wool, a material so steeped in religious and scriptural symbolism, I understood the immense value in the creative act. Suddenly, the work of my hands held meaning!”

Throughout her college years, she was a leader at an all-girls Catholic high school in Savannah for a non-denominational discipleship ministry called Young Life. This ignited her love for ministry. Her exploration of wool in the Fibers program greatly informed her spiritual life.

 Initially, she became a textile designer for women’s clothing brands including Lilly Pulitzer and Marie Oliver. While this experience honed her skills, it also stifled her creative freedom, prompting her to take the bold step into entrepreneurship. Leaving the corporate world behind allowed Holly to channel her energy into creating art that resonates deeply with her values and vision.

She is the fiber arts teacher at Martin Saints Classical High School ( A Chesterton Academy) in East Norriton, PA. “My faith has been intertwined within my artwork from the very beginning. Throughout my life, art has been a way I explore different themes and ideas. By being made in the image of God, his creative power that crafted the universe is woven into our very being. When I am creative, I am participating in the Lordʼs creativity. This cooperation inspires and fuels my work.”

 Holly's most known for her "Sheepskin" series of crocheted artworks, which have been commissioned for SCAD's Permanent Collection and displayed internationally. They are sculptural wall hangings with crocheted domes in a variety of tone, size, and depth resembling the fleece of a sheep freshly shorn. Each dome is filled with raw, virgin wool and is connected to the muslin base using quilting stitches. Each sheepskin calls to mind the redemptive action of Christ, as the Lamb of God, for all of us by taking on our nature (as sheep, see Isaiah 53:6). 

In her work, she explores how cloth reveals what it means to be human. She credits St. John Paul II having a great influence on her artwork and how she understands creativity and beauty. She finds great value in modeling the Benedictine principle of Ora et Labora, “pray and work" to her sons who sometimes enjoy embroidering and felting with their mother.

“The way we view sheep, even today, mirrors our understanding of ourselves. Especially in our increasingly digital and artificial ways of living, I have found wool to be an antidote to our divisive and isolating culture. Wool has revealed our innate human dignity, the value of manual labor, the meaning in material, the beauty in pattern, the sacred in the ordinary, and the power of creativity.”

 Her artwork has been displayed through SCAD’s Permanent Collection in Atlanta, Savannah, Hong Kong, and France, as well as othe parts of the USA.

INDIAN MYSTIC NUN

 

One may ask why certain rare souls are given the gift of mysticism and even rarer gift of the stigmata. We shall never know for certain, but perhaps the very hiddenness is a gift to us all, in the suffering these saints do for all humankind.

ST. MARIAM THRESIA MANKIDIYAN was an Indian Syro-Malabar Catholic  sister and the founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family. She was born in Puthenchira, a village in present day Kerala, India. She is said to have received the stigmata which she kept well-guarded.

Thresia was born in Puthenchira in Irinjalakuda Revenue Division of Thrissur district n 1876 as the third of five children of Thoma and Thanda and was named in honor of Teresa of Ávila. Her family was once rich though became poor when her grandfather married off seven daughters after selling property for each costly dowry, which led to her brothers and her father taking up drinking. Her mother was her father's second wife, the first having died during childbirth in 1872. She had two sisters and two brothers. 

Her mother died in 1888 after blessing her children who gathered at her deathbed. Her mother's death marked the end of her studies, when she then dedicated herself to contemplation in her local parish church, making a private vow to remain chaste.

In 1891 she hatched a scheme to sneak from home to lead a life of penance in the hills but soon decided against this and instead returned home. From 1902 to 1905 she was subjected to several exorcisms from Father Joseph Vithayathil, under orders of the local bishop, and from 1902 it was Father Vithayathil who became her spiritual director until her death.

In 1903 she requested the Archbishop of Thrissur, John Menachery, to build a house of retreat but it was turned down. This happened after she had formed a group with three other friends and engaged in apostolic work with poor families. The Archbishop instead suggested she make an effort to join a religious congregation and encouraged her to join the new Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists but she soon left as she did not feel called to it.

She later accepted Archbishop Menachery's request in 1912 to join the Carmelites at Ollur and was there from 26 November 1912 until she left on 27 January 1913 because she did not feel drawn to them either. In 1913 she set up a house at Puthenchira and on 14 May 1914 founded the Congregation of the Holy Family to which she was professed and accepted as the was the first superior of the congregation.

She was said to have had a range of spiritual experiences such as receiving the stigmata, which she hid from public view. In 1926 a falling object struck her on the leg and the wound soon festered. Thresia was admitted to the local hospital though doctors deemed her condition fatal and she was moved by bullock cart back to the convent where on 7 June 1926 she received the final sacraments and the viaticum. 

She died at 10 pm on 8 June 1926 from her leg wound that her diabetes exacerbated. Her final words were, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul".  

 St. John Paul II beatified her in 2000 and Pope Francis canonized her on 13 October 2019. Her feast day is May 8.

The first miracle that led to her beatification was that of the cure of Mathew D. Pellissery, who was born in 1956 with congenital club feet. He could barely walk with great difficulty on the sides of his feet until he was fourteen. After 33 days of fasting and prayer by the whole family, invoking the help of Mariam Thresia Mankidiyan, his right foot was straightened during sleep on the night of 21 August 1970. Similarly after 39 days of fasting and prayer his left foot was also straightened overnight during sleep on 28 August 1971. Since then, Mathew has been able to walk normally. This double healing was declared inexplicable in terms of medical science by as many as nine doctors in India and Italy and thus met the last canonical requirement for her beatification. Mathew Pellissery was present there during the beatification ceremony

FROM CONNECTICUT TO CHICLAYO

 

Edinson Farfán Córdova, Bishop Chiclayo, Peru has announced that in the coming months his diocese will begin the cause for the beatification and canonization of MONSIGNOR JUAN TOMIS STACK an American missionary priest who was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  He dedicated more than two decades of his life to the most needy of northern Peru and has been cited by Pope Leo XIV on various occasions as a major inspiration for his own missionary vocation.

“How beautiful that he was born in those lands. He came from the United States to serve these communities in Santa Cruz, in the highlands, and later in our beloved Chiclayo, which holds him so dear. I pray, through the intercession of St. John Vianney, that we may begin this process with joy, gratitude, and hope,” Bishop Farfán added.

It all began In 1963, when Bridgeport Bishop Walter Curtis, inspired by the Second Vatican Council, decided to send missionary priests to Latin America.  Among those first volunteers was “a young, enthusiastic priest of Slovak descent", Father Juan Tomis Stack.

In the mountianous region, he faced difficult conditions including lack of roads, electricity, and basic services, as well as high rates of childhood malnutrition, and strong resistance to any pastoral or social change. In 1967, the mission relocated to Chiclayo where he founded St. John Vianney Parish. 

Through perseverance and charity, he helped build roads, a clinic for the poor, promoted priestly vocations, and created lasting pastoral and social programs, including youth activities, medical outreach, libraries, and popular televised Masses.  He also worked to recover Church property that had been illegally occupied.

 In 1979, St. John Paul II named him a monsignor.

When he died in 1986, his funeral drew an estimated 20,000 people, one of the largest gatherings of affection in Chiclayo's history. 

Bridgeport to Peru, was written in 1989 by Monsignor Stephen M. DiGiovanni, but I have not bee able to locate any copies in English.

MYSTIC IN THE NEW WORLD

 

Pope St. John Paul II, hailed her as one of the “founders” of the Catholic Church in Canada. BL. CATHERINE of ST. AUGUSTINE made a promise “to live and die in Canada if God would open its door.”

Catherine was born in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, Normandy, France in 1632.

At the young age of five, Catherine began experiencing mystical experiences from God and at eight she knew she was being asked to be a saint. She is recorded as saying, “Remove from my heart every impurity, let me die now rather than allow my heart and soul to be soiled by the slightest blemish.”

 At age 14, Catherine became a novice at the Hôtel-Dieu of Bayeux, a hospital run by Augustinian nuns. She took the name Catherine of St. Augustine and offered herself for their mission overseas in New France. A day after her 16th birthday in 1648, she took her religious vows. Later that same month, she boarded the boat for the New World.

While on board “Le Cardinal,” Catherine became sick with the plague, but was miraculously cured by the Blessed Virgin. Arriving in Québec, Sr. Catherine began learning the languages of the natives and aiding the sick. It was hostile territory, and their workplace, she wrote, was “more like a hut than a hospital.”

In 1650 when the nearby Ursuline Monastery burnt down, their nuns moved in with the Augustinian sisters for a time. This is where St. Marie of the Incarnation (foundress of the Ursuline sisters in Quebec) met Sr. Catherine. Saint Marie was profoundly moved by the virtues she saw exemplified in Sr. Catherine.

For the next 20 years, Mother Catherine became the mission’s treasurer, director, and then novice director. She also continued in her mystical prayer life. 

The sufferings Mother Catherine endured she offered up in prayer for Canada and for forgiveness for the sins of its inhabitants. She cited Jesus in the Eucharist as being her main source of strength.

Mother Catherine also claimed God had assigned Fr. (St.) Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary to New France, an other native of Bayeux, who had died in 1649. This missionary had never during his lifetime met Mother Catherine. The nun says that from 1662 on, she frequently received visits from this blessed Jesuit, who was entrusted with guiding, comforting, and at times restraining her in her mortifications. But on certain days even he seemed to elude her. To win him to her, Mother Catherine spoke to him with childlike simplicity: “How happy I am, Father, that you are deriving some small joy and satisfaction now from seeing me thus crucified: be vexed with me as much as you like; I shall always look upon you and love you as my kind and charitable Father.”

On many occasions Mother Catherine stated that it was for Canada, which was in danger of undergoing grave punishments for the crimes being committed there, that she was enduring suffering. This role of assumed victim for the colony has placed Mother Catherine among the founders of the Canadian Church. While others overcame the forest, the rivers, and the winter, Mother Catherine bore the sins of her adopted country and grappled in close quarters with the powers of darkness.

Sister Catherine died on May 8, 1668 at only 36 years of age. St. François de Laval, the first Bishop of Québec (considered the founder of the Catholic faith in New France) wrote, “I don’t need to see any extraordinary signs from her to be convinced of her holiness, because her virtues made me perfectly aware of it.” 

The natives gave her the name lakonikonriiostha, the one who makes the interior more beautiful”.

She was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1989, and her bones are preserved within a tomb in a shrine at Le Centre Catherine-de-Saint-Augustin in Quebec City.  Her feast day is May 8.

A MODERN MYSTIC

 

Somehow the month of August got away from me, but I thought perhaps we could study some of the Church’s newer mystics. This category of saints is probably one of the hardest to understand, as well as the most difficult for the Church to sort out due to the unusual aspect of the saint's life.

BL. EDVIGE (HEDWIG) CARBONI spent her life between her humble daily life and mystic phenomena, even receiving the stigmata which she tried to hide in every way possible. She had to deal with gossip and slander and she was even subjected to a Canonical Enquiry from which she was absolved. She was able to dedicate her life to service of the poor and sick.

Born in Pozzomaggiore, Sardinia in 1880, she was the second of six children.  Her father, Giovanni Battista Carboni, was a working man of modest means. She had to leave school in the fourth grade to care for her chronically ill mother and care for her younger siblings.

Her mother taught her embroidery as a child, and she would work with her father in the embroidery business. She also spent time in the convent of the Sisters of Saint Vincent in Alghero, where the nuns led a course in embroidery. Her desire to become a religious was thus thwarted and she would spend a sober and collected domestic life, alternating household chores with moments of prayer.

She became a professed member of the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1906 and belonged to an association known as the Friends of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus; she began recording her thoughts in a spiritual journal. Her mother died in 1910, and her responsibilities tripled.

On July 14, 1911, the signs of the Passion of Jesus appeared on her body. Edvige experienced a number of visions from Our Lady and many saints. She began to experience bilocation in 1925, and this grew greater during World War II. These and other mystical phenomena that were attributed to her were investigated in the canonical process of 1925, to which she underwent with complete obedience. She then moved to Rome with the rest of her family, just as the Second World War was about to begin.

Edvige belonged to the parish of the Salesians "Saint Mary Help of Christians" on Via Tuscolana. There she went almost every morning for Mass and Communion, where she usually prayed in the chapel of Saint Anne. Most of the ecstasies and extraordinary events took place there. She died suddenly in 1952 of angina pectoris.

Blessed Edvige Carboni's life was characterized by an unceasing charity, especially toward the weakest, Cardinal Becciu pointed out. A friend of the poor, she had words of comfort for all.

Cardinal Becciu said in the homily of the beatification rite: “Blessed Edvige embodies the most beautiful virtues of the Sardinian woman of the time. And yet from her experience, data emerge that make her testimony more relevant than ever ... Her simple and profound spiritual experience, marked by limitless charity, boundless humility and incessant prayer, is still a current model, because it shows that even in a simple life and ordinary it is possible to experience a solid communion with God and an apostolate characterized by a passion for wounded and disadvantaged humanity.”

" The new Blessed had “a heart that was humble and full of charity because the long hours of prayer banished any trace of barrenness and spiritual idleness. Through prayer, Edvige performed acts of reparation for those who were in the shadows of sin, and implored divine mercy for those who insisted upon not allowing themselves to be reached by grace”.

 She was a Sardinian laywoman who kept house, did embroidery, taught catechism to children, visited the sick, yet carried in her body the wounds of Jesus Christ for more than four decades without seeking any attention for it. Her feast day is February 17.

ANGEL OF AUSCHWITZ

 

SERVANT OF GOD STEFANIA LACKA (pronounced “Wonska”) was born on Jan. 6, 1914, in Wola Żelichowska, a village in southern Poland to a devout, peasant family.  From a very young age she experienced a deep faith. Every day she found a moment during the long days of work in the fields to take refuge in the church and pray.

At the parish, she took the opportunity to read, because the parish priest opened his doors to anyone who wanted to read in his extensive library.   She attended a teacher-training institution, graduating in 1933.

 

From 1934 to 1939, she worked for Nasza Sprawa (“Our Case”), the Catholic weekly publication of the Diocese of Tarnów, writing 700 articles and editing the children’s supplement Króluj nam Chryste (“Christ, reign over us”). 

After the Nazi German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, the editorial team offered its skills to the Polish underground movement. The Gestapo arrested Stefania and other members of the team on April 16, 1941. 

 She was held at the Gestapo headquarters in Tarnów and later at the local prison. She was interrogated and tortured, but did not reveal the names of any of her associates.

 She was transported on April 27, 1942, with 60 other female prisoners to Auschwitz, where she was assigned the number 6886.

 In June 1942, a female prisoner escaped the camp. The authorities forced the prisoners to stand in the roll-call square for two days waiting to discover who would be killed in retribution for the escape.

 Bishop Jeż’s edict, dated July 26 but reported on the diocesan website on Aug. 8, said that Stefania was standing beside her friend, Helena Panek, as they awaited their fate. Stefania promised that if Helen was selected then she would go to her death with her. But the authorities were ordered not to proceed with their planned punishment. In spite of torture and dire living conditions, she refused to lose her humanity and encouraged other women

While caring for the sick Stefania fell ill with typhus and was admitted to the camp hospital in block 23. She recovered by the spring of 1943 and began working in the camp hospital as a nurse. Using her proficiency in German enabled her to gain access to some documents.

 Even though she knew it would cost her life if she was discovered, she altered data to get some people off the lists of those condemned to the gas chambers or to receive a lethal injection. She also wrote letters to the families of prisoners, and shared the power of prayer with everyone she could.

When she was unable to save babies condemned to the gas chamber along with their mothers, Stefania didn’t hesitate to baptize them in secret. 

“Risking her own life, she baptized newborns and ministered to people who were seriously ill,” Bishop Jeż noted in the edict. “She also watched over the dying, sweetening their last hours of life.” She encouraged other female prisoners to pray together with the dying.  Her fellow prisoners called her the ‘earthly guardian angel.'”

 She wrote a camp prayer book that survived the Second World War intact.

Stefania left Auschwitz with five companions on Jan. 23, 1945, days after the camp was bombed. She returned to her family home in Wola Żelichowska, where she attended daily Mass and helped her family.

 She began studying Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, but her health deteriorated and she was admitted to a hospital in the city in October 1946. She died on Nov. 7, 1946, at the age of 33 of tuberculosis

 In his edict, Bishop Jeż said that Stefania ’s spirituality offered an example for Christians today.“Stefania Lacka was distinguished for her high degree of the virtues of faith, hope, love, and moral virtues. From the day of her funeral to the present, her private cult has been growing.

At the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation in Pasierbiec, a village near Krakow, in 2010 the people dedicated the outdoor Stations of the Cross with figures from recent Polish Catholic history. At the the Eighth Station, where Jesus speaks to the women,  He greets Stanislawa Leszczynska, who delivered over 3,000 babies at Auschwitz and Servant of God Stefania Lacka.