Finally, the day has come when two successors of Saint Peter, namely Blessed John Paul II and Blessed John XXIII, each one with his own God-given charisma, will be declared saints together. The date chosen for this special ceremony falls on the Divine Mercy Sunday, another significant feast in the Catholic liturgical calendar.
Blessed John Paul II said that “holiness is to raise one’s eyes to the summits. It is intimacy with God the Father who is in Heaven. In this intimacy, each one of us is aware of our nature, with all its limitations and difficulties.” Did John Paul raise his eyes to the summits? Was he united with the Heavenly Father? According to Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the postulator of his cause for canonization, John Paul’s life was an intimate relationship with God. His incessant communion with God perfumed those around him with Christ’s holy aroma.
Monsignor Oder also said that there were times when the Polish Pontiff did not go to bed simply because he preferred to spend entire nights on his knees praying.
During an interview, the postulator gave a very interesting detail about how Pope John Paul II’s pontificate evolved round prayer. “There is a very touching episode that identifies it very well. At the end of one of his last apostolic journeys, the sick Pope was led to his bedroom by his collaborators. The next morning, they found his bed undisturbed, because John Paul II had spent the whole night in prayer, kneeling on the ground. For him, the recollection of prayer was fundamental. So much so that, in the last months of his life, he asked to have a space in his bedroom for the Most Blessed Sacrament.
“His relationship with the Lord was truly extraordinary.”
This pilgrim Pope reserved a special place for Mary, both in his heart as well as in his amazing pastoral pontificate. For Monsignor Oder, Pope Wojtyla nourished an “extremely profound relationship with Our Lady”. The postulator explained that “sometimes during the Marian prayer, the Pope seemed rapt in ecstasy, alienated from the surrounding context, be it while strolling or during a meeting. He lived a most personal relationship with the Virgin”.
All this make us conclude that John Paul II’s mysticism was indeed great.
Monsignor Oder said that the secret of the Holy Father’s sanctity can be explained precisely in this: “He had a profound relationship with the living Christ, especially in the Eucharist, from which flowed all that we faithful saw in him as fruit of extraordinary charity, apostolic zeal, passion for the Church, love of the Mystical Body.” John Paul II’s name remains written in the ever evolving history of holiness as one whose “authentic mysticism was present and was manifested in his being in the presence of God”.
The other great Pope to be canonized today is Blessed John XXIII. This extraordinary Italian Pontiff, who came from humble origins, had the courage of opening the Church to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit. Pope John was a catalyst for the much needed reform in the Church. He envisaged that the Church of Christ could truly fulfil her mission by embracing dialogue, both within her ranks as well as with the outside world. Blessed John’s pontificate was thoroughly impregnated with the slogan “to bless and not to condemn”. The Church direly needed to approach the world with a humble and understanding demeanour in order to hold a constructive dialogue with it.
It was Pope John’s prophetic mission to show that peace is urgent. In his encyclical testament, “Pacem in Terris,” Pope Roncalli wrote: “[We] conceive of it as Our duty to devote all Our thoughts and care and energy to further this common good of all mankind. Yet peace is but an empty word, if it does not rest upon that order which Our hope prevailed upon Us to set forth in outline in this encyclical. It is an order that is founded on truth, built up on justice, nurtured and animated by charity, and brought into effect under the auspices of freedom.”
Both Popes remind me that Christian holiness rests in living in the world but never conformed to it.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann