MIAMI — The Roman Catholic Church is set to hold its first beatification ceremony on Cuban soil this weekend, honoring a humble 19th-century monk who helped the sick during an 1835 cholera epidemic.

Jose Olallo Valdes, of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, is credited with performing a miracle in 1999 when a 3-year-old girl suddenly recovered from an abdominal tumor doctors said was inoperable.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva, prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, is traveling from the Vatican to perform the beatification ceremony in the Plaza of Our Lady of Charity in Camaguey on Saturday.

Beatification, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, is the last step before canonization, when a person is officially recognized as a saint.

Olallo is the second Catholic of Cuban origin to be beatified. Augustinian deacon Jose Lopez Piteira, who was born in Cuba, but worked in Spain, was beatified in Rome last year.

Camaguey has been preparing for the celebration of Olallo's beatification for weeks. Residents helped ready the plaza where the ceremony will take place. Thousands of images of Olallo have been distributed and many adorn homes around the city.

"This for us is an enormous honor, not only for Catholics, but for all Cubans," said Monsignor Juan de Dios Hernandez Ruiz, the island's auxiliary bishop.

Born in Havana on Feb. 12, 1820, Olallo was abandoned in a Havana orphanage, but from a young age showed a desire to serve the needy and especially the ailing.

"He was a great healer who worked as a surgeon, doctor, pharmacist and educator of poor children," recounted the Rev. Felix Lizaso, who headed up the petition for Olallo to be canonized at the request of the former bishop of Camaguey, Alfredo Rodriguez.

Pope Benedict XVI issued a statement saying he hopes Olallo's virtuous example will "help the Church in its evangelizing mission, and give renewed apostolic vitality to all Cubans who are glorified as disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ."

Monsignor Oscar Castaneda, rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami, said the work of Olallo can be summed up in one word, "mercy," adding, "That is why they called him 'the witness of mercy.' "