By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Sister Patricia Burkard admits that she did not know much about Mother Marianne Cope when she was elected general minister of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities six years ago. That’s because she belonged to the Franciscan Sisters of Buffalo, not Syracuse, Mother Marianne’s group, before those and other New York Franciscan communities formed a union under the Neumann name.

But she is a quick study.

This month she was island hopping, telling local congregations all about Hawaii’s second candidate for sainthood.

Sister Patricia had the privilege of delivering a relic of Blessed Marianne from Syracuse to Hawaii. She brought it to each main Hawaiian Island for veneration before it was enshrined on May 13 in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.

“Personally, it’s been a wonderful blessing,” she told the Hawaii Catholic Herald on May 13.

“I have come to know Blessed Marianne quite well,” she said. “It is a joy to tell her story.”

Sister Patricia spoke for about 10 minutes after Communion at eight Masses across the state from May 6 to May 13, as the relic, fragments of bone, was displayed in a small gold reliquary surrounded by flowers and leis.

“I said she was an instrument for God’s providential care for the people of Hawaii,” Sister Burkard said, guided “only by the generosity of her heart.”

She was “the human face” of the Gospel’s mandate to care for the hungry, the sick and the impoverished.

“She did great things,” said the Franciscan Sister, but “she also planted flower gardens and trees — simple things that added joy and beauty to people’s lives.”

Sister Patricia said that Blessed Marianne lesson for today is for “each of us to find our purpose in life and to do it well.”

“Bloom where you are planted,” she said.

As a defender of patient rights and one who believed strongly that everyone is entitled to medical care, she is a positive example for a nation now debating its health care policies, Sister Patricia said.

The Franciscan superior would like Blessed Marianne’s life story to be more well known, and acknowledged that greater efforts are needed to make that happen.

Perhaps that will come easier once she is made a saint.

Sister Patricia said that the second “miracle” required for her canonization was submitted in 2010 to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints for approval. She said that she has been assured that the Vatican office is actively studying the case, although there is no guarantee that the congregation will judge it favorably.

No details on the case have been released, though most incidents submitted as possible miracles are sudden and inexplicable medical healings.

St. Damien’s second miracle took several years and a few setbacks before it was approved.