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   VERONICA GIULIANI: RESPONDING TO THE LOVE OF CHRIST   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 15 DEC 2010 (VIS) - In today's general audience, celebrated in   
   the Vatican's Paul VI Hall, the Pope spoke about St. Veronica Giuliani, a   
   Capuchin Poor Clare the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of whose birth   
   falls on 27 December.   
      
   Born in the Italian town of Mercatello in 1660, "she was the last of seven   
   sisters of whom three others also embraced the monastic life", the Pope   
   explained. She was christened with the name of Ursula and at the age of   
   seventeen entered the convent of Capuchin Poor Clares in Citta Castello where   
   she spent the rest of her life. There she was given the name of Veronica, "and   
   a year later pronounced her solemn religious profession. Thus began her   
   configuration to Christ through a journey of great penance and suffering, and a   
   number of mystical experiences associated with Jesus' Passion. ... In 1716, at   
   the age of fifty-six, she became abbess of her convent, remaining in that   
   position until 1727 when she died following a painful agony of thirty-three   
   days". She was proclaimed a saint by Pope Gregory XVI on 26 May 1839.   
      
   The main source for St. Veronica's life is her diary of some 22,000 handwritten   
   pages, the Pope said. "Hers was a markedly Christological-spousal spirituality.   
   This is the experience of being loved by Christ, the faithful and sincere   
   Bridegroom, and of wishing to respond with an increasingly committed and   
   impassioned love".   
      
   Veronica "offered her prayers and sacrifices for the Pope, bishops, priests and   
   all people in need including souls in Purgatory". She also "participated   
   profoundly in the tormented love of Jesus, ... even asking to be crucified with   
   Him", said Benedict XVI.   
      
   He then highlighted how the saint "was convinced that she was already   
   participating in the Kingdom of God, but at the same time she invoked all the   
   saints of heaven to help her on the earthly journey of her oblation, as she   
   awaited eternal beatitude. This was the constant aspiration of her life", the   
   Pope remarked.   
      
   "The high points of Veronica's mystical experience were never removed from the   
   events of salvation as celebrated in the liturgy, where pride of place is given   
   to proclaiming and listening to the Word of God. Sacred Scripture, then,   
   illuminated, purified and confirmed Veronica's experience, making it ecclesial.   
   ... Indeed, she not only expressed herself with the words of Sacred Scripture,   
   but also lived by them".   
      
   "Veronica", the Holy Father went on, "was in particular a courageous witness of   
   the beauty and power of divine Love. ... She also experienced a profoundly   
   intimate relationship with the Virgin Mary".   
      
   "St. Veronica Giuliani invites us, in our lives as Christians, to fortify our   
   union with the Lord, abandoning ourselves to His will with complete and total   
   trust, and our union with the Church, the Bride of Christ. She invites us to   
   participate in the tormented love of the crucified Jesus, for the salvation of   
   all sinners. She invites us to fix our gaze on heaven, the goal of our earthly   
   journey where we will live ... the joy of full communion with God. She invites   
   us to draw daily nourishment from the Word of God so as to warm our hearts and   
   guide our lives. The last words of the saint", Benedict XVI concluded, "may be   
   considered as the summary of her impassioned mystical experience: 'I have found   
   Love! Love has let itself be seen'".   
   AG/VIS 20101215 (580)   
      
   SUMMARY   
      
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