By Rita McInerney

A blue scarf invasion from North America landed in Rome shortly before last Dec. 9. The people donning the scarves were colorful notice to the Romans that something memorable was happening to one of their own.

It was the canonization of Saint Marguerite d’Youville with pomp and solemn ceremony by Pope John Paul II on Dec. 9 at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Sister Anne Zita Crudden, a teacher at Christ the King School, Atlanta, represented Grey Nuns in Atlanta. She estimates 3,000 pilgrims traveled to the Eternal City for the canonization of the holy woman who founded the Sisters of Charity of Montreal (the Grey Nuns) on Dec. 31, 1737.

The blue scarves, made by Grey Nuns in Montreal, were given everyone who came to Rome for the ceremony. They were imprinted with the new saint’s name, the year, and marguerites, a flower better known as daisies.

All around Rome, Sister Zita met people wearing the blue scarves. “They were everywhere.”

For the ceremony, “security was very tight, each section was barricaded and guarded.” As instructed, she and her group arrived an hour early, bearing color-coded tickets, but were outmaneuvered for aisle seats by the more experienced Romans. But about 20 minutes before the Liturgy began, she felt a tap on her shoulder. After translation by a nearby priest, it turned out the guard wanted them to move closer to the altar.

Sister Zita ended up sitting behind a pillar, right behind the main altar. The view was much better than that from rear section seats.

The atmosphere, she said, “was full of expectation and excitement. It was a joyous experience for everyone there” to see this beloved woman being sainted by the Universal Church for her personal holiness, service to the poor, and her compassion and courage.

“Unconsciously we had the feeling that she must be very pleased because her message was being proclaimed,” the Grey Nun said.

The sun, she said with a laugh, came out during the beginning of the two-and-a-half hour Liturgy, “I thought it was like God smiling. And it was the last time we saw it in Rome.”

“We were very pleased that Bishop Lyke came to Rome for the ceremony. He was the only bishop from our branch.” There are approximately 170 Grey Nuns from Yardley serving in 22 dioceses and archdioceses in the U.S.

To mark the ceremony, a huge banner hung outside the basilica. It depicted the new saint with some of the poor to whom she devoted most of her 70 years on earth. She is the first Canadian elevated to sainthood.

A reception for the Grey Nuns from the six independent foundations, Montreal, Quebec (two), Ottawa, Philadelphia, and Ontario, lay associates, friends and benefactors, followed the canonization liturgy. This was held in the large hall where Pope John Paul II holds his general audiences.

Barbara Johansen, a member of Christ the King parish and a student of the Grey Nuns there, through high school and college, also flew to Rome for the canonization.

It “shocked” her, she notes in her journal, to see how “small, hunched, old and weary,” the “Papa,” John Paul II, appeared as he passed in the procession. “Not at all as we see him through the eyes of the TV tube.”

“A woman from Canada, miraculously cured of leukemia through Marguerite’s intercession” was in the offertory procession, she wrote. Hers was the final documented miracle accepted in the lengthy canonization process. The new saint had been beatified by Pope John XXIII in 1959.

Representing the only U.S. congregation, the Yardley, Pa., branch, in the offertory procession was a laywoman, Joanne Cornell, principal of the Grey Nuns Academy in Yardley.

Members of the U.S. congregation taking part were Sister Mary Charlotte Barton, former superior general, who sang in one of the choirs, and Sister Julia Lanigan, who sang the responsorial.

Sister Zita shared her Roman experience and showed slides to her sixth, seventh and eighth grade religion students at Christ the King. She also talked about the trip with the members of the associate group in Atlanta and with sister Grey Nuns serving the Atlanta archdiocese.