Following Pope Leo XIV’s announcement that he will undergo surgical intervention to remove a lung nodule, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke issues an urgent exhortation to prayer. He asks all pilgrims and friends of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe to pray for the health of His Holiness and for the Holy Spirit to guide his surgeons.
This Extraordinary Jubilee marks the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis’s death, which took place on October 3, 1226. It is fitting, then, to celebrate this Holy Year especially in October, the last month that saw him on earth.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) is one of the Shrine’s patrons, venerated in the first side altar on the right from the Shrine Church’s entrance. She is among the best-known and loved saints of the Church. Yet this very familiarity may overshadow Thérèse’s unique character and powerful teaching.
Monsignor Daniel J. Seiker, a priest of the Diocese of Lincoln, has been named Executive Director of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and will begin his service on October 5, 2026.
Soon Catholics in the United States will have particular reason to celebrate, as Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) is declared Blessed. Almost fifty years after his death, Sheen is still well known for his apostolate of television and radio, through which he reached millions of people long before social media made this type of work common and necessary. He is to be beatified, however, not simply because of his productive apostolic life, but because he lived what he preached.
One of the great blessings of making a pilgrimage to the Shrine is the opportunity to venerate the relics of these and many other saints and to ask for their intercession.
