Blessed Lucien Botovasoa

Lucien Botovasoa, TOFS (1908 – 14 April 1947) was a Malagasy Catholic schoolteacher and a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. Botovasoa served as a teacher for his entire life and was dedicated to both the religious and secular education of children. His thirst for the religious life led him to discover the Secular Franciscan Order in 1940 and he became part of it; he rallied others to know Francis of Assisi and enter the order themselves. Botovasoa likewise adopted the Franciscan charism for himself through his fasting and clothing habits. Botovasoa was murdered in 1947, during a period of tumult in Madagascar. His cause for canonization opened on 11 October 2011 under Pope Benedict XVI in which he became titled as a Servant of God. Pope Francis confirmed in mid-2017 that Botovasoa was killed in hatred of his faith and decreed that he was to be beatified; the ceremony was celebrated in Vohipeno on 15 April 2018. Lucien Botovasoa was born sometime in 1908 in Madagascar as the first of nine brothers and sisters. One brother was André. Botovasoa studied first in a public school from 1918 before being baptized and receiving his First Communion in 1922,. He later completed his studies from 1922 until 1928 at the Jesuit college of Saint Joseph before becoming an instructor there with his new teaching diploma. He made it a practice after each lesson to read about the lives of the saints to those students who wanted to hear about them and he often added his own comments and words of encouragement to the students. On 10 October 1930 he married Suzanna Soazana (b. 1914) in his local parish and the pair had five children; his wife was pregnant with their final child at the time of Lucien's murder. His firstborn Vincent de Paul Hermann was born on 12 September 1931. One nun once said to him that he'd made a fine priest and asked him if he had ever regretted marriage.