Maria Esperanza de Bianchini (November 22, 1928 – August 7, 2004), also known as Servant of God

Servant of God

Servant of God is a title given to individuals by various religions, but in general the phrase is used to describe a person believed to be pious in his or her faith tradition. In the Catholic Church, it designates someone who is being investigated by the Church for possibly being recognized as a...

 Maria Esperanza, was a Venezuelan

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

 mystic

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

, born on the feast of Saint Cecilia

Saint Cecilia

Saint Cecilia is the patroness of musicians and Church music because as she was dying she sang to God. It is also written that as the musicians played at her wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord". St. Cecilia was an only child. Her feast day is celebrated in the Roman Catholic, Anglican,...

 in Barrancas in the State of Monagas

Monagas

Monagas State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela.Monagas State covers a total surface area of 28,900 km² and, in June 30, 2010, had an estimated population of 908,626....

 near the Orinoco

Orinoco

The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3% of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia...

 River. On January 31, 2010 in the (Catholic) Cathedral of St Francis of Assisi in Metuchen, New Jersey

Metuchen, New Jersey

Metuchen is a Borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States, which is 8 miles northeast of New Brunswick, 18 miles southwest of Newark, 24 miles southwest of Jersey City, and 29 miles southwest of Manhattan, all part of the New York metropolitan area...

 the cause for the beatification

Beatification

Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...

 and canonization

Canonization

Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...

 of Maria Esperanza was opened by the Bishop Paul Bootkoski of the Diocese of Metuchen, which act gave her the title Servant of God. Maria's Marian Apparitions

Marian apparitions

A Marian apparition is an event in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed to have supernaturally appeared to one or more people. They are often given names based on the town in which they were reported, or on the sobriquet which was given to Mary on the occasion of the apparition...

 were approved at the local level by the bishop, but not by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition , and after 1904 called the Supreme...

, which has only approved 12 apparitions to date.

Life

Believers claim that, while at one point Maria Esperanza considered becoming a nun, it was revealed to her in a vision on October 3, 1954 that her calling was to the married life, eventually having seven children and twenty grandchildren. It is said that in this vision of St. John Bosco, the saint told her she would first encounter her spouse on November 1, 1955, which she reportedly did. She was particularly devoted to St Thérèse of Lisieux – the “Little Flower”. Believers hold that, from her youth, she lived a life of virtue and fidelity to God and received the gifts of supernatural knowledge, healing, apparition, discernment of spirits, locution, ecstasy, levitation, the odor of sanctity, the stigmata, and the ability to read the hearts of others. Witnesses claim to have seen her levitating

Saints and levitation

There are numerous saints to whom the ability to fly or levitate has been attributed. Most of these "flying saints" are mentioned as such in literature and sources associated with them....

 during mass

Mass (liturgy)

"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...

 and engaging in bilocation

Bilocation

Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is a term used to describe the ability/instances in which an individual or object is said to be, or appears to be, located in two distinct places at the same instant in time...

. Her legend also recounts that Maria received the spiritual direction and the mantle of Saint Padre Pio, and received in the presence of her husband a bilocated

Bilocation

Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is a term used to describe the ability/instances in which an individual or object is said to be, or appears to be, located in two distinct places at the same instant in time...

 visitation from the saint the day before he died.

On March 25, 1984, the Virgin Mary appeared to Maria and 150 people in Finca Betania, Venezuela. More than 100 witnesses gave written attestation to the apparition. The local Bishop approved the apparitions in 1987: "In consequence, after studying with determination the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Finca Betania and after assiduously asking our Lord for spiritual discernment: I declare that in my judgment these apparitions are authentic and of supernatural character."