Saint of the Month: Blessed Dina Bélanger

PERFECTING PIANO PERFORMANCE IN NEW YORK

She continued to study piano performance in Québec, and in 1916, her teacher recommended that she attend the Institute of Musical Art in New York City. She went there and struggled with homesickness, but learned English and completed her studies in the spring of 1918. While in New York, she lived in a convent and especially treasured her late-night visits to the Blessed Sacrament in the convent chapel.

THE CALL TO RELIGIOUS LIFE

Dina did not understand the contrast between her longing for a religious vocation and her musical studies. In her conversations with Jesus, He told her that her music would actually protect her religious vocation. She truly offered all her piano performances to Jesus as though she was playing for Him alone. Back in Québec, she gave concert level piano performances for the next three years. During this time, she became a Third Order Dominican. Finally, in 1921, Dina entered a teaching order, the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary, at age twenty-four.

Upon her arrival at the Québec convent, she knew for certain that this was to be her home. She was given the name Marie de Sainte-Cécile de Rome (in English, Mary of Saint Cecilia of Rome), most likely due to this martyr saint being the patron of musicians. Her assignment was to teach music. During her novitiate, her closeness and total surrender to Jesus had progressed to where had a unique mystical experience. This is traditionally known as a spiritual “exchange of hearts” with Jesus and was also experienced in the fourteenth century by St. Catherine of Siena, and again in the seventeenth century by St. Margaret Mary Alocoque. She also saw that the Eucharistic Host and the Sacred Heart are one and the same, which is consistent with the medical tests results from the many Eucharistic miracles that have occurred over the centuries. After becoming sick with scarlet fever in 1923, Dina improved, but the fever never left her. At this time, aware of the unique mystical experiences she was undergoing, Dina’s superior asked her to write an autobiographical record of her spiritual life.  By the spring of 1924, Dina was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Her health declined but her magnificent spiritual life only intensified, and she recorded this in her memoirs. She said that being asked to write about her spiritual life was the most difficult task she had ever been given, but she obeyed out of obedience. She made her final vows in the spring of 1928. By the following spring, Dina was moved to an isolation ward in the convent due to the contagion of her illness. She died there September 4, 1929 at age thirty-two and was buried at the convent.

“DIED OF LOVE”

Blessed Dina Bélanger is often referred to as “The Little Flower of Canada”, due to the resemblance of her life to that of the great Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She faithfully recorded her conversations with Christ in her autobiography, entitled Canticle of Love, including during her final days. Her desire to console the wounded Heart of Christ was extraordinary. He made her understand that He, being impassible in His divinity, was consoled in His humanity by her retroactively during His passion. He also told her that His purposes for her writing were to tell of the indescribable love of His human Heart and of His desire for our love in return. It is said by some that Blessed Dina literally “died of love”. Her beatification cause was opened in Québec in the 1950’s and included the testimony of her parents and of theologians who examined her writings for consistency with the truths of the Faith. She was beatified in 1993 in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Her feast day is September 4, and she is a patron for musicians.