Blessed Dina Belanger - Mystic
|
The Life of a Saint in our time Dina Bélanger was born in Sillery, Québec, Canada on April 30, 1897. There are those who believe that there was a connection between the little Saint and the Little Flower of Lisieux, St. Thérèse, because Dina was born exactly five months before St. Thérèse died. Also, during Dina’s time in the convent, she was given the Little Flower as a protectress by Our Lord Jesus. There are also many other similarities between the two Saints, which we will see as we go on with the life of Dina. The church where she was baptized was not the church where the well-to-do people of the town worshiped. To the contrary, St. Roch’s was in the working man’s section. She was born at ten before nine in the morning and baptized in the afternoon of the same day. She was named Marie (after our Lady), Dina (after her father’s mother), Marguerite (after St. Margaret Mary Alacoque). Dina wrote of that time in her life, as she was given to see it in her heart: "It seems to me that, in the earliest moments of my life, God wrapped the protective cloak of the Blessed Virgin around me; my eyes first saw light on the eve of the month of Mary, a Friday, and that very evening the grace of Holy Baptism drove the devil out of my soul to let the Divine Spirit reign as its master." Her father, Octave Bélanger, and mother, Séraphia Matte, were very spiritual people. They gave this child of God the solid Christian formation that she needed to open herself to the working of God in her life. Everything centered around their Faith, their morals, and their Christian behavior. Dina’s mother Séraphia talked about her dreams for her child even before she was born: "I asked God that this child, soon to come into this world, accomplish something good in its life, and not by halves, that this child become a religious man or woman, if such was His Will. Every time I went to Mass, I renewed this request." The Lord surrounded Dina with Saints and Angels to protect her from her very earliest age, even to where she lived and the names of the streets. She lived up from Our Lady of the Angels Street on the street of St. Joseph. From Dina’s childhood, she recalled her mother signing her with the Sign of the Cross while she was still in the cradle. Dina remembered hearing Bible stories and accounts of the famous Angels and Saints in our Church. She would sit on her mother’s knee while she read to her. She learned how to kneel very early, about twelve months old, and prayed the Hail Mary before she was two years old. She prayed the Angelus with her family, as did all French Canadians in the little town of Sillery, located on the outskirts of Québec, off the St. Lawrence River. This was God’s country; these were God’s people; they enjoyed the peace of the Lord. Dina predicted her Sainthood at the very beginning of the writing of her autobiography.3 She did not believe it would happen because of any great attribute of hers, but in repayment to her parents, whom she once called her visible Guardian Angels on earth. She truly believed she had to pay them back for the suffering they endured, in allowing their daughter to follow the path, she felt the Lord had planned for her. She said in her Autobiography: "Admirable parents indeed! Only in Heaven shall I fully understand the vigilance, devotedness and love of my mother and father...I thank Thee for having spared, until this day, these two beings who ever preferred Thy good pleasure to their own gratification and did not hesitate to sacrifice what was dearer to them than life itself...To prove my gratitude, I am in duty bound to become a Saint. I have contracted a sacred debt which I must discharge at all costs...Yes I will become a Saint. I will become holy to the degree God has marked out for me. Thus may I repay them for the pains they have taken for my education and console them in their grief over our separation." For More information about Blessed Dina Belanger Click here Reference Visionaries, Mystics, and Stigmatists |
|
