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The Sisters of the Holy Family have well-documented the life of their foundress, Venerable Henriette Delille, while traveling the ongoing road to her possible canonization as a saint.
As part of the 175th anniversary celebration of the founding of their order and to promote their foundress’ cause for sainthood, the Holy Family Sisters, their friends, relatives and high school students at their St. Mary’s Academy took a bus tour of sites around New Orleans significant to the life of Henriette Delille, who was declared “venerable” in 2010.
The tour prompted the Sisters of the Holy Family to chart locations important to her life, giving people devoted to her cause a chance to retrace her order’s footsteps in the city, said Holy Family Sister Doris Goudeaux, director of the Henriette Delille Commission Office. They are in the process of compiling the pertinent addresses in a new brochure.
Path to sainthood
Venerable Henriette Delille is the first United States-born African American whose cause for canonization has been officially opened by the Catholic Church.
She was previously named a “Servant of God” in 1988 when St. John Paul II granted former Archbishop Philip Hannan’s request for permission to begin a canonization process. It was initiated by Mother Rose de Lima Hazeur, then-superior general of the Sisters of the Holy Family.
Her life was researched from 1988-2005, and a box of nearly 6,000 pages of documents on her life was sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, just two months before Hurricane Katrina flooded the motherhouse.
In 2006, the documents were declared valid. Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, the Rome-based postulator of the cause, wrote a “positio” in 2007 on her life, virtues and reputation for sanctity as a “model of a true Christian.” By 2009, seven historians and nine theologians had approved the positio. In 2010, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints affirmed that Mother Henriette practiced a life of heroic virtue, and Pope Benedict XVI declared her venerable.
Henriette Delille’s prayer: “I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I want to live and die for God.”
Venerable Henriette still has hurdles to overcome in validating two miracles attributed to her in Arkansas and in Texas that could lead to her beatification – and possibly her canonization – but the sisters are confident those days will come. Their responsibility is to keep spreading word about her.
Creating a tour of her life locally is one way they are doing that.
Here are a few sites around New Orleans that bear significance to the life of Venerable Henriette and the Sisters of the Holy Family. The Sisters of the Holy Family Motherhouse was used as the beginning of the tour:
Oher places that honor her are St, Peter Claver School in New Orleans, where there is a marble statue created by local artist Marcus Brown and dedicated to her in 2012; and in Metairie at St. Angela Merici Church, at Beverly Gardens Drive and Metairie, Henriette’s Delille’s portrait is on the Wall of Saints.
The sisters and the Friends of Henriette Delille promote her cause for sainthood as much as possible. They celebrate her life on a Saturday near the date of her death (Nov. 17) and also the founding of the sisters in a Founder’s Day Mass Nov. 21, and, in recent years, the sisters have paraded on a float dedicated to Henriette Delille during Carnival season.
In 2000, a Lifetime cable movie, “The Courage to Love” featuring Vanessa Williams, was made.
Sister Doris said if she were declared blessed, the Mass of Beatification would be celebrated in New Orleans with a huge ceremony and celebration in New Orleans. If she went to be canonized, the Mass of Sainthood would be celebrated in Rome.
“I don’t think there will be any words to say about this,” Sister Doris said. “We’re so excited. This would be all the big things ever to happen in New Orleans in one.”
Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].