ON SUNDAY, OCT. 20, Mother Church will canonize, among others, Blessed Marie Leonie Paradis (1840- 1912), founder of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family. This beloved saint worked in both Canada and the United States, including California. Today more than 2,000 women of the Little Sisters have dedicated their lives to God in support of the ministry of priests. The Little Sisters of the Holy Family now have 67 convents in Canada, the United States, Rome and Honduras.
The sisters devote themselves to work in the kitchens, laundries and sacristies of colleges, seminaries and episcopal residences. Mother Marie Leonie personally pursued the work of educating and promoting the welfare of poor illiterate girls, many of whom joined her congregation.
We at Holy Family Church in Seal Beach feel truly blessed on this occasion, not only because we share the name with her religious congregation, but also because her close relative, great-niece Sr. Kathy Paradis lives and ministers among us. In addition, Marie Leonie’s father was one of the early gold prospectors in California.
Mother Leonie herself had personally visited one of her houses in Menlo Park, California.
Sr. Kathy and the Holy Family community cordially invite you – priests and the faithful – (especially Canucks among us) to celebrate Mother Marie Leonie’s canonization at the 8 a.m.,10 a.m. or 12 p.m. Masses, on Sunday, Oct. 20. Light reception follows after the 12 p.m. Mass. Attendees will meet the saint’s great-niece Sr. Kathleen Paradis, M.C.H.S. at each Mass celebrated that day.
“Our mission in the Church is to help the priests on the temporal and spiritual planes,” Mother Marie Leonie wrote, “but what it really demands as a supreme witness is for us to love one another and to love all people, not with just any love, but with all the love that God wants to give them. We must therefore repeat without tiring that our principal work is to give love.”
For more information, please contact the parish office at (562) 430-8170.