Two highly-likely future saints, one a Dominican sister, were the subject of a recent edition of "EWTN Live," the flagship show of the Eternal Word Television Network hosted by Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J. His guest, Father Gabriel O'Donnell, O.P., Academic Dean of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., is the postulator for the causes of Father John McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, and Mother Mary Alphonsa Hawthorne-better known as Rose Hawthorne, daughter of author Nathaniel Hawthorne and one of the most famous converts in US history.

In 1900, in her early 40's, Rose Hawthorne, an immensely cultured woman and an author herself, founded, along with Alice Huber, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne of New York, whose mission it is to care for the terminally ill. A few years earlier, after taking a course in nursing, she had moved into humble quarters in New York's Lower East Side and begun caring for poor patients suffering from incurable cancer.

In particular the life of Fr. McGivney, a simple parish priest, noted Fr. O'Donnell, illustrates a truth highlighted by the late Pope John Paul II-that "everyone is called to become a saint," and that "ordinary lives lived out in an extraordinary manner" can evince "heroic virtue," the Church's ultimate condition for sainthood.

The priest's enormously generous love of people and understanding of their weaknesses prompted him to found the Knights of Columbus in 1882, said Fr. O'Connell. The Knights were founded at St. Mary's in New Haven, CT, a Dominican parish, where the priest's remains are kept. Both Fr. McGivney and Rose Hawthorne already carry the title of Venerable Servant of God, the first step on the way to sainthood. Once canonized, Fr. McGivney, who died when he was just 38, would be the first American priest thus honored.

Click here for the interview.