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 learned the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the rosary and developed a deep love for the Blessed Mother, to whom she was consecrated at her baptism.
At the anniversary Mass, Pérez recalled first encountering Maria during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she wrote to him after public Masses had been suspended. She wanted to receive the Eucharist, which she described as the grace she needed amid her illness.
Pérez responded that same day, offering to bring her Communion himself.
“She definitely lived a life that exemplified” Christ’s command to love “God with all your heart,” Pérez said. “That’s why we’re here today.”
Since her death on Oct. 8, 2020, Brian and Susan Middleton have received dozens of messages each week from people who say their daughter has affected their lives, including people who have returned to the Church, rediscovered the sacraments, or deepened their faith through her example.
In June, Pérez was presented with a petition seeking the introduction of the Bucks County teenager’s cause for canonization, beginning the Church’s preliminary process of consultation.
Father Griffen Schlaepfer, a 28-year-old Philadelphia priest who first learned about Maria after her death, encountered her story through a holy card at his parish bearing one of her sayings: “You don’t have to be weird to be holy.”
The line has stayed with him as he has come to know her witness. “You don’t have to be joyless to be holy,” Schlaepfer said. “You can have a full, attractive life and also live in accordance with God’s will completely.”
Faith from an early age
Maria was born Sept. 10, 2002, when Susan was 44, after she and Brian had married following the annulment of their previous marriages and blended their families together. Her parents describe her as an unexpected gift from God. She was also, in many ways, an ordinary teenager.
She loved music, Irish dance, and sports. She excelled academically, was elected class president, and belonged to the National Honor Society, all while serving in various roles at her parish.
Maggie McArdle, a childhood friend, met Maria in first grade. She remembers Maria as funny, witty, and kind — a girl who made silly music videos with her friends and loved making duct-tape wallets.
“I can remember belly laughs, just laughing until our bellies hurt,” McArdle said. “I like to talk to her today and read through our old texts. Those are so special to me.”
Kim O’Grady, Maria’s sister, remembers that relatability as well. Fifteen years older than Maria, O’Grady watched her grow into a teenager who loved Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers, and Shawn Mendes and, like other teenagers her age, had Snapchat and Instagram.
Although she had many of the same interests as her teenage peers, there were signs that Maria had her priorities in order when it came to faith and self-growth.
“She knew what her North Star was,” O’Grady said, explaining that Maria seemed to know who she was and what she believed. “If you just have that relationship with God and just focus and hone in on that, you can be who you are and live out to your full potential.”
Maria, conscious of pressures many young people face today, demonstrated in her writings a desire for growth. After watching old videos of herself as a child, for instance, she reflected on how much she had changed and how social media had affected the way she thought about herself.
“I think seeing the videos of me made me realize there’s no reason for me not to be like the way I was when I was little,” she wrote in her journal. “Even if that means to cut out social media a little or do more stuff for fun and just enjoy the little things, that’s what I’ll train myself to do.”
Stephanie Weaver, who taught Maria in Catholic social teaching and moral theology at Villa Joseph Marie High School, saw that combination of faith and action firsthand. As a freshman, Maria started a coat drive benefiting Mother of Mercy House in Kensington and co-chaired the school’s mini-thon — now called Hope-A-Thon in Maria’s honor — a dance marathon that raises money to support children battling cancer.
“There was something so different about Maria because she didn’t just talk the talk,” Weaver said. Instead, she “walked the walk.”
A good student who was involved in various charitable activities, Brian said Maria never confused her accomplishments with her identity.
“Her holiness wasn’t exposed when she was diagnosed” with brain cancer, Brian said. “Her holiness came and grew throughout her lifetime in her pursuit of virtues and offering up her talents to God.”
For Maria, that kind of holiness would soon be tested. In January 2019, when she was 16, she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor on her brainstem. Doctors told her family she might have nine to 12 months to live.
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Father Simione Volavola, who knew Maria from childhood through the family’s parish, was in the room when she received the diagnosis.
“She was the most peaceful person in the room,” Volavola said. “She just took it very calmly and accepted it very quickly.”
That peace remained as Maria’s illness progressed, even as her physical suffering increased. “She never lost that peace,” Volavola said. “The body was failing. She was really suffering, but very graceful in the way she carried her cross.”
Maria hoped for a miraculous healing throughout her illness. At the same time, however, she sought to surrender herself to God’s will.
Her journals, which she began keeping as a child, reveal a spiritual life that her parents say they only fully understood after her death. Her first recorded words in a journal at age 11 were simple: “God is merciful.”
Her final written words, as the effects of the tumor made writing increasingly difficult, were two words that would become the name of the foundation established in her memory: “Think hope.”
‘She did not despair’
As Maria’s physical abilities disappeared, her concern for other people did not.
Nine months after her diagnosis, she traveled with her parents to Uganda, where students at Pope John Paul II Academy had been praying for her. One girl, Patience, wrote Maria a letter asking her to pray for her brother, who had sickle cell anemia.
When Maria later received an opportunity through Make-A-Wish, she chose to use it to help Patience’s family and the school.
Back home, during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, friends organized virtual rosaries for Maria’s healing, including one Zoom meeting that drew more than 2,000 people. In another show of care for the teenager, more than 500 cars participated in a parade outside the Middleton home.
Even as Maria’s condition worsened, Susan said, she never lost hope.
“She watched when her legs didn’t work and her arms didn’t work,” Susan said. “And she could no longer hear. And she could no longer swallow. And she could no longer speak. She knew all this was happening and she did not despair.”
Maria died Oct. 8, 2020, at the age of 18. Her parents now devote much of their lives to sharing her story. Their book, “Think Hope: Maria Middleton’s Life of Unyielding Trust in God,” was published by Ascension in 2025.
At the anniversary Mass, Pérez emphasized that the Church’s discernment about Maria’s possible sainthood is ultimately secondary to the witness she already offers.
“Faith is like a ripple,” he said, quoting Maria. “When you have faith and show it, it will impact other people’s lives.”
“Maria says to young people, you too can have great faith,” he told the Register. “You too can be holy. You too could have hope.”
“You too can live a life of hope and a love of life,” Pérez continued, “of faith and a love for the Lord and for his Church.”
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News.