Mexican priest considered protector of the unborn beatified

MEXICO CITY (OSV News) -- Father Moisés Lira Serafin has been beatified in a ceremony at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in his native Mexico, where he is beloved as a protector of life from conception and is credited with the miracle of saving an unborn child's life.

Pope Francis welcomed the news Sept. 15 during his saying of the Angelus, telling the faithful, "Yesterday, Moisés Lira Serafin was beatified in Mexico City. A priest and founder of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity of Mary Immaculate, he died in 1950, after a life spent helping people to advance in faith and in love of the Lord."

He added, "May his apostolic zeal encourage priests to give themselves unreservedly, for the spiritual good of the holy people of God. A round of applause for the new Blessed! I can see the Mexican flags over there!"

At his beatification Mass Sept. 14, Father Lira was remembered as a joyful and joking person, even amid personal and physical pain, whose humility and service to others led him to live by the maxim, "It is necessary to be very small to be a great saint."

"The foundation of his joy … was to always do the will of God as Jesus did," the celebrant, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for Saints' Causes, said in his homily. "This was his source of joy. This is how Blessed Moses lived the smallness of which he speaks."

Father Lira was born in 1893 in the eastern state of Puebla. His family was afflicted by hardship: His mother died when he was just 5 years old and he moved often due to his father's work.

"Despite everything, his character remained cheerful, playful and joking. In this, our blessed can also be seen as a model for many people who had an emotionally poor childhood and youth," Cardinal Semeraro said.

Father Lira joined the priesthood with the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in 1922. He endured the religious persecution of 1920s Mexico -- with churches closed during the Cristero Rebellion -- by celebrating Mass secretly and bringing Communion to the sick.

He later founded the Missionaries of the Charity of Mary Immaculate. "Moved by the Holy Spirit, (Father Lira) did not simply seek to give a social response to the needs of his time. Rather, he intended to offer an evangelical response to both the social and spiritual needs of society and the church," according to a biography provided by the Archdiocese of Mexico City.

Father Lira died in 1950. Pope Francis declared him venerable March 27, 2013, in one of the first acts of his papacy.

His beatification followed the recognition of a miracle attributed to him involving a woman's unborn daughter being diagnosed with fetal hydrops -- an accumulation of fluid that is usually fatal -- in the fifth month of pregnancy. She said in an interview with Archdiocese of Mexico City newspaper Desde la Fe that her doctor recommended terminating the pregnancy to avoid the baby suffering.

Rosa María Ramírez Mendoza, whose family lives in the central state of Guanajuato, found a brochure with Father Lira's work. She didn't know who he was.

"But upon reading that he had interceded for a woman, I thought, 'If he helped this woman, he can help me too.' So, in my desperation, I asked him to intercede for me and I decided to pray to him for nine days," Ramírez said.

She returned to the doctor during the sixth month of pregnancy and was told her baby was in good health.

"I'm the example that God exists," said Lissette Sarahí, Ramírez's daughter, who was born Sept. 6, 2004.

"This is a very strong message from God," said Father David Padrón, who promoted Father Lira's beatification, according to The Associated Press. "Maybe those mothers who have a problem during their pregnancies can confide in him."