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commission named to investigate cause for sainthood for oblate

Story by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

When Oblate Father John Maronic visited Lourdes, France in 1961, he could not have imagined that 41 years later — and 22 years after his death in 1985 — a historical commission would be appointed to examine his writings as a first step in the cause for sainthood.
“This is an important step,” Brother Francis Sullivan, OMI, said, “on a huge journey. I’ll take it one step at a time and see what happens.”

Brother Sullivan was appointed postulator for the cause of sainthood, which means he will gather all of Father Maronic’s writings and make sure the members of the commission receive whatever help he can give them.

The process was started when Bishop Edward K. Braxton, Belleville’s bishop, signed the decree Aug. 1 establishing the commission and appointed Father John W. Padberg, SJ, Sister Jane Kehoe Hassett, CSJ and Joseph H. Mueller to review Father Maronic’s writings, both those published and those not published, and to make a report to Bishop Braxton on their findings.

This could take a number of years to complete and determine whether his cause for sainthood should go forward, Brother Sullivan said.

Father Maronic, born in 1922, grew up in International Falls, Minn., one of three children.
He attended the Oblate seminary in Belleville and was later ordained. Father Maronic taught at the Oblate major seminary in Pass Christian, Miss., and later returned to Belleville to minister at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows.

Father Maronic noticed people with disabilities who visited the shrine. He had seen all of the people with disabilities who visit Lourdes and researched the organizations in this country that served the needs of those people.
He realized that many of the organizations were developed by healthy people for those with disabilities. Father Maronic wanted to start an organization that was not only  attended by people with disabilities but that was run by them as well.

“He was calling the giftedness of people with disabilities to be recognized as part of the community,” Brother Sullivan said.

At first, the organization was called “Victim Missionaries,” but the name was later changed to “Victorious Missionaries,” and today, the VMs have chapters in cities across the United States, due in large part to the work of Father Maronic.

“We were like troubadours traveling across the country,” Brother Sullivan said, remembering the early years when Father Maronic would announce a trip. “We only knew the day we were leaving and the day we were returning.”
On those trips, Father Maronic spoke at parishes and went to bishops’ offices to raise awareness about the gifts of people with disabilities.

He gathered those people together and encouraged them to claim their giftedness and share it with others.
“There is an undercurrent of goodness in everyone,” Father Maronic said. “All it takes to bring it to the surface is a spark, a prompting.”

For more information about Father Maronic, please go to the VM web site at www.vmusa.org.