Pennsylvania teen’s witness of faith and hope inspires calls for her canonization

DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania — When Maria Middleton was 5 years old, she disappeared into her room days before Mother’s Day to make a card for her mother.

Susan Middleton was delighted. Maria was already an articulate, precocious child, and Susan eagerly anticipated whatever heartfelt message her daughter had prepared.

The card was decorated with flowers. On the front, Maria had written, “Happy Mother’s Day.” On the inside, it read, “To the second-best mother in the world.”

Susan laughed when she recounted the story in an interview with the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, but the card also reflected something she had tried to instill in Maria from an early age: that while she had an earthly mother who “makes mistakes,” she also had a perfect mother in heaven.

Six years after Maria’s death from a brain tumor at the age of 18, hundreds gathered Oct. 5 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, as Archbishop Nelson Pérez of Philadelphia celebrated Mass marking the anniversary of her passing.

It was to this shrine that Susan had brought Maria every week to Eucharistic adoration, starting at age 3. Here, Maria…