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An aerial view of the Canonization of the two Popes, St. John XXIII and John Paul II. About 500,000 attended here plus some 300,000 more viewing giant screens throughout the city and millions more on television worldwide.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/getty/article/ALeqM5g8dWRiaINhO9kxlICcAcqVhIa1uQ?docId=487086797&hl=en for a close up, much larger, and more panoramic view that you can explore with your mouse.
Today we saw the canonization of two popes on Divine
Mercy Sunday. A bad habit worked to my
benefit; that is I fell asleep early in front of the television set after a
tiring afternoon of yard work and woke up at 3:30 am, just in time to see live
the canonization of these two great popes.
It had to be acts of divine mercy that God raised up such great and
saintly popes to steer the Church through such a turbulent world over the last
168 years. Blessed Pius IX (1846-78) had
to confront the conquest of the Papal States, one revolution after another in
Europe, the Franco Prussian War, and the disappearance of Poland from the map
as Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided the country among themselves. Leo XIII (1878-1903) fought the evils and
abuses bred by the Industrial Revolution and the rise of Marxism.
St.
Pius X (1903-14) tried to prevent World War I among the imperialist powers of
Europe. Benedict XV (1914-22) tried to
make peace during World War I. Pius XI (1922-39)
saw the World Depression, the rise of two great evils which he vociferously
condemned, Nazism, Italian and Japanese Fascism on the one hand and atheistic Communism
on the other while trying to prevent World War II. Pius XII (1939-58) tried to obtain peace,
save thousands of Jews, more than any single person while America would not accept Jewish refugees, and guide a badly persecuted Church through
Nazism and Communism in Europe and China.
St.
John XXIII (1958-63) guided the Church through the tensest part of the Cold War
which came perilously close to a nuclear holocaust, but for the providence of God. Paul VI (1963-78) guided the Church through a
period of chaos that resulted from liberal distortions of the Vatican Council, the
sexual revolution, and the Cold War. The
Lord used St. John Paul II the Great (1978-2005) to play a crucial part in the collapse
of Communism in Europe and he had to face terrorism…….a revival of the thousand
year old war between Western Civilization and militant Islam. Pope Benedict XVI (2005-13) continued St.
John Paul II’s work and gave the Church a greater theological understanding.
Two popes stand out among these greats of the golden age of the papacy and we canonized both of them today. We covered St. John Paul II in Blog #10 regarding his legacy and achievements and in Blog #79: Remembering Him and how he touched us, and Blog #98 on his visit to Detroit in 1987. Let us do the same with St. John XXIII for his canonization.
Two popes stand out among these greats of the golden age of the papacy and we canonized both of them today. We covered St. John Paul II in Blog #10 regarding his legacy and achievements and in Blog #79: Remembering Him and how he touched us, and Blog #98 on his visit to Detroit in 1987. Let us do the same with St. John XXIII for his canonization.
St.
John XXIII initiated the Vatican Council, considered by some to be the most
important event in the Church in the 20th Century. St. John Paul II helped to write the
documents and played a very important role in its implementation that continues
today.
Both of the new saints were Divine
Mercy popes. In
the first days of his pontificate in 1958 St. John XXIII came across a stack of
supposedly routine papers to sign.
Considered to be of the least importance and on the bottom was one to
suppress completely the Divine Mercy devotion because of a determination of
doctrinal error in St. Faustina’s Diary of our Lord’s appearances to her. St. John XXIII turned the stack upside down
and saw the Divine Mercy document first.
He was struck by it and wanted to consult the Polish bishops on it, but
they were tightly restricted under Communism.
Instead he merely suspended it until further information could be
obtained.
Some
15 years later Cardinal Archbishop Karol Wojtila of Cracow, Poland investigated
it and discovered the diary and found it very authentic and true. Thus he put pressure on the Vatican to lift
its suspension and it turned out that the alleged doctrinal error was merely due
to a faulty translation. Upon becoming
Pope John Paul II he wrote his second encyclical on Divine Mercy, beatified and
canonized St. Faustina, and finally in the year 2000 declared the Second Sunday
of Easter (the Octave) as Divine Mercy Sunday to be observed by the entire
Church. He died on the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday.
Pope
Francis himself stated that he grew up with a devotion to Divine Mercy.
The highlight of Pope Francis’s
homily at the
Canonization is the following quote: “They
were priests, bishops and popes of the twentieth century. They lived through
the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For
them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ
the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown by those
five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was the closeness of Mary
our Mother.” What a lesson for the
world! Pope Francis has a remarkable
skill of saying so much with such great depth in a few words. The complete text is given in the Appendix of
this blog.
My most vivid memory of St. Pope
John
XXIII was at a general papal audience inside the immense Basilica of St. Peter
in the Vatican in September 1962. It was
with my mother when I was on leave from my Army base in Orleans, France during
the depths of the Cold War after Nikita Khrushchev put up the Berlin Wall. They carried the good Pope, seated upon a
portable throne, through the standing room only throng to the altar. That first sight of him some 50 feet away was
unforgettable. This large man had a warm
and peaceful smile that radiated joy, great kindness, and a tremendous love for
everybody there as he blessed us. The
Pope spoke to us in French & Italian which was translated to us in
different languages. He asked for
prayers for the success of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council which was due to
open in the Fall. That was the only
session that he would preside over. His
successor, Pope Paul VI presided over the last three sessions in the Fall of
1963, 1964, and 1965.
On
Sunday at noon he came to the window of his apartment for his weekly praying of
the Angeles and gave his papal blessing as auto horns blared. There were less people, but still a good
crowd in St. Peter’s Square excited to have a glimpse of the good Pope. His voice was powerful and energetic. Little did we know that we could see his
canonization on EWTN this Sunday.
Pope
John XXIII was proud of his peasant origins. He had a common touch that
endeared him to millions, and a beautiful humility that showed the depth of his
spirituality as does his book, “Journal of a Soul” (google it or
click on http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/tags/journal-of-a-soul). Yet he was strong and vigorous. As Fr. Angelo Roncalli, God prepared him for
the papacy…….experience as a medic and chaplain during World War I, teaching
Church History in a seminary, and working with the Propagation of the
Faith. From 1925 to 1953 he was a
Vatican diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey, and France before being named the
Cardinal Archbishop of Venice. Under
orders from Pope Pius XII he played a role in rescuing Jews from Nazi
controlled Hungary.
Since
John XXIII was almost 77 when elected, nothing much was expected of his papacy
in probably a short reign. Pope for only 4 ½ years, (1958 – 1963), his
accomplishments far exceeded expectations. He appointed a commission to revise the Code
of Cannon Law. The Pontiff expanded the
College of Cardinals well beyond the customary 70 to be more international and
include bishops from the Philippines, Japan, and Africa. Furthermore, he established native
hierarchies in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Korea.
Pope John continued the liturgical reforms begun by Pius XII and
authorized use of the vernacular in the administration of Sacraments.
His Two Principal Encyclicals. As a part-time graduate student in Business
at Louisiana State University while working as a chemical engineer at Allied
Chemical Corp. in Baton Rouge 1963-64, I belonged to the Graduate Discussion Group of
the Catholic Student Center under the tutelage of Fr. William Borders, 50 years
old and apparently destined to remain a Newman Center chaplain for the rest of
his career. The next year he was made
monsignor, became the Rector of the cathedral parish, in 1968 the first Bishop
of Orlando, had a heart attack, in 1974-89 the Archbishop of Baltimore and
living to be 96 years old. We read and
discussed the two greatest encyclicals of St. John XXIII that significantly
impacted the world. Little did the
members of this discussion group realize how its members and its leader would
later apply the principles of these two great documents.
With
Mater
et Magistra on Christianity and Social Progress (1961) St. John XXIII reinforced
and updated the pioneering 1891 encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Rerum
Novarum on the Condition of Labor on the 70th anniversary of
its publication. His successors updated
it further with Octogesima Adveniens (1971) of Paul VI and Centesimus Annus of John
Paul II in 1991. These social
encyclicals are really summaries of the social teachings of the Church at the
time and promoted social justice. ñ Remarkable
is the unity of papal teaching from one Pope to another……never contradicting,
always reinforcing, adapting and updating to changing times, new realities, and
different problems.
For the complete text of Mater et Magistra, see http://www.papalencyclicals.net/John23/j23mater.htm. In fact the complete texts of almost any papal document is available on www.papalencyclicals.net and www.vatican.va, including encyclicals, apostolic letters, and other documents as those of the Vatican II Council.
For the complete text of Mater et Magistra, see http://www.papalencyclicals.net/John23/j23mater.htm. In fact the complete texts of almost any papal document is available on www.papalencyclicals.net and www.vatican.va, including encyclicals, apostolic letters, and other documents as those of the Vatican II Council.
This
encyclical reiterated the principle of subsidiarity…….that Big Government
should only intervene when lower levels (communities, families, and
individuals) cannot or will not do the job themselves with decisions being made
at the lower levels. Workers should not
be seen as commodities, but as human beings with great dignity, created
according to the image and likeness of God.
The
just wage should reflect one’s contribution to a company according to justice
and equity, not simply the marketplace (supply and demand). It must be a living wage. A nation should balance economic development
with social progress with the common good in mind. Labor and Management must also consider the
common good in their demands and decisions.
The wealthiest nations should assist and help the poor nations to help
them to develop themselves. Human life
is sacred and must be nurtured through the family.
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower meets with Pope John XXIII on December 6, 1959....... the first American president of the United States to visit a Pope since Woodrow Wilson in 1919. This former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Wurope in World War II and all of his successors as well as other world leaders recognized how many divisions the Pope has (Joseph Stalin's question), i.e., influence on the world stage by visiting him. |
In
the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and the Cuban
Missile Crisis in October 1962 during the Cold War that threatened to become a
nuclear war (we actually came extremely close, but for the hand of Providence),
John XXIII published on April 11, 1963 his landmark encyclical, Pacem
in Terris ("Peace on Earth"). He addressed it to all men of good will, on
natural-law principles of peace. The
Pontiff died less than two months later on June 3 of stomach cancer.
In
this encyclical the Pontiff emphasized that there cannot be peace or justice on
earth until all of humanity recognizes the dignity of human beings as creations
of God. Peace needs to be based upon an
order “founded on truth, built according to justice, vivified and integrated by
charity, and put into practice in freedom”.
It was received very well on both sides of the iron curtain. See the complete text at www.papalencyclicals.net/John23/j23pacem.htm.
The
good Pope used his moral influence for peace in 1961 during the Berlin crisis,
in 1962 during the Algerian revolt against France, and again later that year
during the Cuban missile crisis. In 1963, he was posthumously awarded the U.S.
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
His Great Missionary Initiative. In 1961 he made an appeal for priests,
religious, and lay volunteers to participate in the missions in Latin
America. Many laymen and religious with their
dioceses responded to his call and I was one of them, although over a year
after his death in June 1963. It was
Pope John XXIII who inspired the formation of a group of some 250 American lay
men and women called the Papal Volunteers for Latin America or
“PAVLA”
under the authority of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Some 500 of us served in all.
Although now defunct as an entity, it was a
pioneering effort as the first organized missionary group of lay men and women on
a national scale with a temporary three year commitment to serve in the
missions (See Blogs #61-65. I was
sponsored by the Archdiocese of Baltimore and was sent to Arequipa, Perú to
teach Chemistry and the Methodology of Science Teaching. After taking a year off to obtain a Master’s
Degree in Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh, I taught Business
and Economic Development at the Universidad Católica de Santa Maria. I served for a total of 14 years until 1982.
Vatican Council II.
To everyone’s surprise three months into
his papacy Pope John XXIII announced in his own words: “to open the window of
the Church to fresh air” and convene an ecumenical council which took 44 months
to prepare. Its goals included renewing life
in the Church, to reform its structures and institutions, and to explore ways
and means of promoting unity among Christians. It was really a missionary
council……to renew the Church, to make it more effective with the faithful, and to
evangelize the world with the light of Christ.
John XXIII was the first to use the term, “evangelization”; John Paul II
took his predecessor’s name and traveled all over the world to evangelize. Their successors also picked up on the “New
Evangelization” and promoted it. The
Pontiff selected the liturgy as the first major topic of discussion by the
Council. Collegiality was also to be
discussed.
The
council ushered in a new era in the history of the Church. Among those most active in the writing of its
documents were two brilliant scholars…….one, a young 42 year old philosopher, Auxiliary
Bishop of Cracow, Poland Karol Wojtila and the other, a young 35 year old theologian
by the name of Fr. Joseph
Ratzinger. Eventually they became Popes John
Paul II and Benedict XVI and implemented the Council despite liberal attempts
to distort it under the guise of “Spirit of Vatican II” according to their own
agenda. Many of them never even read the documents the
Council published.
In
no way did the Council ever change or contradict any doctrine; that was never
the intent. But it did clarify Church
teaching and deepen our understanding of it, i.e., the Magisterium. The Council did adapt Church teaching to the
new realities of the 20th and 21st centuries. In fact 50 years later the Church is still in
the process of digesting and implemented Vatican Council II. The Council of Trent (25 sessions from 1545 –
1563), i.e., the beginning of the Counterreformation, also took years to implement
and had a lasting historical significance.
For the texts of all 16 documents, see http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v2all.htm.
APPENDIX
Text of the Homily of Pope Francis at the
Canonizations of St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II
At
the heart of this Sunday, which concludes the Octave of Easter and
which John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, are the glorious
wounds of the risen Jesus.
He had already shown those wounds when he first appeared to the Apostles on the very evening of that day following the Sabbath, the day of the resurrection. But, as we heard, Thomas was not there that evening, and when the others told him that they had seen the Lord, he replied that unless he himself saw and touched those wounds, he would not believe. A week later, Jesus appeared once more to the disciples gathered in the Upper Room, and Thomas was present; Jesus turned to him and told him to touch his wounds. Whereupon that man, so straightforward and accustomed to testing everything personally, knelt before Jesus with the words: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).
The wounds of Jesus are a scandal, a stumbling block for faith, yet they are also the test of faith. That is why on the body of the risen Christ the wounds never pass away: they remain, for those wounds are the enduring sign of God’s love for us. They are essential for believing in God. Not for believing that God exists, but for believing that God is love, mercy and faithfulness. Saint Peter, quoting Isaiah, writes to Christians: “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24, cf. Is 53:5).
Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II were not afraid to look upon the wounds of Jesus, to touch his torn hands and his pierced side. They were not ashamed of the flesh of Christ, they were not scandalized by him, by his cross; they did not despise the flesh of their brother (cf. Is 58:7), because they saw Jesus in every person who suffers and struggles. These were two men of courage, filled with the parrhesia of the Holy Spirit, and they bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness and mercy.
They were priests, bishops and popes of the twentieth century. They lived through the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown by those five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was the closeness of Mary our Mother.
In these two men, who looked upon the wounds of Christ and bore witness to his mercy, there dwelt a living hope and an indescribable and glorious joy (1 Pet 1:3,8). The hope and the joy which the risen Christ bestows on his disciples, the hope and the joy which nothing and no one can take from them. The hope and joy of Easter, forged in the crucible of self-denial, self-emptying, utter identification with sinners, even to the point of disgust at the bitterness of that chalice. Such were the hope and the joy which these two holy popes had received as a gift from the risen Lord and which they in turn bestowed in abundance upon the People of God, meriting our eternal gratitude.
This hope and this joy were palpable in the earliest community of believers, in Jerusalem, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 2:42-47), as we heard in the second reading. It was a community which lived the heart of the Gospel, love and mercy, in simplicity and fraternity.
This is also the image of the Church which the Second Vatican Council set before us. John XXIII and John Paul II cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the Church in keeping with her pristine features, those features which the saints have given her throughout the centuries. Let us not forget that it is the saints who give direction and growth to the Church. In convening the Council, John XXIII showed an exquisite openness to the Holy Spirit. He let himself be led and he was for the Church a pastor, a servant-leader, led by the Spirit. This was his great service to the Church; he was the pope of openness to the Spirit.
In his own service to the People of God, John Paul II was the pope of the family. He himself once said that he wanted to be remembered as the pope of the family. I am particularly happy to point this out as we are in the process of journeying with families towards the Synod on the family. It is surely a journey which, from his place in heaven, he guides and sustains.
May these two new saints and shepherds of God’s people intercede for the Church, so that during this two-year journey toward the Synod she may be open to the Holy Spirit in pastoral service to the family. May both of them teach us not to be scandalized by the wounds of Christ and to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of divine mercy, which always hopes and always forgives, because it always loves.
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