With all that’s taken place in Venezuela over the past week I decided to do some research to find out what saints might be good intercessors on behalf of the Venezuelan people, to help them with the very serious social and political challenges they face. A quick internet search told me that the main patroness of Venezuela is the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Coromoto. In 1651, the chief of the Coromoto tribe and his wife were walking in a ravine near the Tucupido River in the western part of Venezuela. Decades earlier the tribe had moved there from their ancestral home in the region of Guanare to avoid interaction with Europeans. But on that day that the chief and his wife saw a beautiful woman standing on the waters of the river with a loving expression, carrying a child in her arms. The woman called to the chief and told him, “Leave the forest with your people and go to the white men in order to receive the water on the head so as to be able to enter heaven.” Thus began the Venezuelan people’s devotion to the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Coromoto.
Although the people of Venezuela have been overwhelmingly Catholic for centuries, it was only this past fall that they were finally able to count canonized saints among their number. On October 19, Pope Leo XIV canonized two native Venezuelan saints. Jose Gregorio Hernandez (1864-1919), affectionately known as the “Doctor of the Poor,” was encouraged by his mother to pursue a career in medicine. After finishing studies in bacteriology, he returned from Europe to his homeland where he established the country’s first laboratory of experimental physiology. Although his education and abilities could have made him a very wealthy man, he focused on treating patients who could not afford his care. He regularly refused payment, purchasing medicine for them using his own money. Always devout, having considered monastic life as a young man, he saw the practice of medicine as the way he would serve Christ. At 54 years old, he was tragically killed when struck by a car in the streets of Caracas while buying medicine for an elderly patient. Since his death, he has been held up as a figure beloved by his fellow Venezuelans to whom he was selflessly devoted.
Along with St. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, Pope Leo also canonized Mother Carmen Rendiles (1903-1977). Rendiles grew up in Caracas, the third of her parents’ seven children. From a young age she desired to enter religious life, and joined a French religious community, the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus. After returning from her time of formation in Europe, she devoted herself to teaching and the formation of young people, with an emphasis on Eucharistic devotion, prayer, and the virtues of obedience and charity. She eventually became the superior of the community in Venezuela, receiving permission to establish a Venezuelan branch of the order in 1965. Mother Carmen died in 1977 and is remembered for her serenity, trust in Divine Providence, and her promotion of Eucharistic spirituality. May these new saints, St. Jose Gregorio and St. Carmen Rendiles, along with Our Lady of Coromoto, intercede for the people of Venezuela in these hard, yet hopeful, times.
posted 1/10/26
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 