00 13/04/2015 05:20



April 12, 2015 - Second Sunday of Easter
The eighth day of the Easter Octave was earlier observed as the Sunday of St. Thomas the Apostle,
commemorating his contact with the Risen Christ, but it is now Divine Mercy Sunday.

Divine Mercy Sunday is based on the Catholic devotion that Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) advocated from her mystic conversations with Jesus. He asked her to paint the vision of Divine Mercy pouring from his sacred heart and specifically asked for a feast of Divine Mercy to be established on the first Sunday after Easter so mankind would take refuge in Him. The Divine Mercy devotion was actively promoted by Pope John Paul II who, on April 30, 2000, canonized Sr. Faustina and officially designated the Sunday after Easter as the Sunday of Divine Mercy in the General Roman Calendar. A year after establishing Divine Mercy Sunday, John Paul II re-emphasized its message in the resurrection context of Easter: "Divine Mercy is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity". Providentially, he died on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005, and it was only right and fitting that he was beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011, and canonized on Divine Mercy Sunday last year.


AT THE VATICAN TODAY
Pope Francis celebrated Mass at St. Peter's Basilica to mark the first centenary of what is commonly called 'the Armenian genocide' perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks against more than a million Armenians living on Turkish territory. But none of the Vatican announcements nor the Pope's texts used the word genocide at all. [P.S. Mea maxima culpa! The Pope did use the word genocide once, citing John Paul II and the Armenian Catholicos Karekhin II, in a joint declaration in 2001, who referred to the Armenian tragedy as 'the first great genocide of the twentieth century".]



The chosen euphemism for genocide was the 'Armenian martyrdom' in what the Armenians call Metz Yeghern (The Great Evil). The centenary was also the occasion to proclaim the 10th Century Armenian monk Gregory of Narek as a Doctor of the Church. (Gregory was not Catholic - he belonged to the Armenian Apostolic Church founded in 301 - but acquired an equipollent canonization as a Catholic saint when Pope Francis declared him a Doctor of the Church.)

The Pope concelebrated the Mass with His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Patriarch of Ciliciaa of the Armenian Catholics, in the presence of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenia, and His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia.

The Pope unusually delivered an address about the 'Armenian martyrdom' before the Mass, and addressed the Armenian people directly after the Mass when he met with the Armenian Patriarchs and the President of the Republic of Armenia, Serž Sargsyan, in the Chapel of the Pieta. He gave each of them a copy of the letter intended for the Armenian people.

In his homily, as well as in the noontime Regina caeli, the Pope underscored the significance of Divine Mercy Sunday and how the Apostle Thomas proclaimed his faith in the Risen Lord.

On Divine Mercy Sunday last year, Pope Francis canonized his predecessors John XXIII and John Paul II.






Here is Benedict XVI's mini-homily before the Regina caeli prayers on the first Divine Mercy Sunday of his Papacy on April 23, 2006:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday the Gospel of John tells us that the Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, enclosed in the Upper Room, on the evening of the "first day of the week" (Jn 20: 19), and that he showed himself to them once again in the same place "eight days later" (Jn 20: 26). From the beginning, therefore, the Christian community began to live a weekly rhythm, marked by the meeting with the Risen Lord.

This is something that the Constitution on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council also emphasizes, saying: "By a tradition handed down from the Apostles, which took its origin from the very day of Christ's Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal Mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord's Day" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 106).

The Evangelist further recalls that on the occasion of both his appearances - the day of the Resurrection and eight days later - the Lord Jesus showed the disciples the signs of the crucifixion, clearly visible and tangible even in his glorified Body (cf. Jn 20: 20, 27).

Those sacred wounds in his hands, in his feet and in his side, are an inexhaustible source of faith, hope and love from which each one can draw, especially the souls who thirst the most for divine mercy.

In consideration of this, the Servant of God John Paul II, highlighting the spiritual experience of a humble Sister, St Faustina Kowalska, desired that the Sunday after Easter be dedicated in a special way to Divine Mercy; and Providence disposed that he would die precisely on the eve of this day in the hands of Divine Mercy.

The mystery of God's merciful love was the centre of the Pontificate of my venerable Predecessor.

Let us remember in particular his 1980 Encyclical Dives in Misericordia, and his dedication of the new Shrine of Divine Mercy in Krakow in 2002. The words he spoke on the latter occasion summed up, as it were, his Magisterium, pointing out that the cult of Divine Mercy is not a secondary devotion but an integral dimension of Christian faith and prayer.

May Mary Most Holy, Mother of the Church, whom we now address with the Regina Caeli, obtain for all Christians that they live Sunday to the full as "the Easter of the week", tasting the beauty of the encounter with the Risen Lord and drawing from the source of his merciful love to be apostles of his peace.

But I flash forward now from that Divine Mercy Sunday in 2006 to the one five years later when Benedict XVI beatified his beloved predecessor... For all those who love and venerate John Paul II and who, like me, have been praying to him all along for his heavenly intercession, the event might as well have been his canonization, after all; and the actual canonization last year was but the formalization of what we have felt about the great Pope since he died.



It was on May 1, 2011, that Pope Benedict XVI beatified his predecessor six years after Pope John Paul’s death. The beatification ceremony in Rome was attended by over 1.5 million pilgrims. Included in their number was Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, the French nun whose miraculous cure from Parkinson's Disease paved the way for the beatification.

Just to bring back the flavor of that very special day, here is the photo summary I attempted of it the day after...
John Paul II's Beatification Day yesterday, May 1, 2011, was a truly historic event only likely to be equalled by what will almost certainly be the next big moment in the great Pope's story, his canonization...

Very appropriately, the event has left the mass media - including the normally logorrheic commentariat - relatively dumbstruck. The ceremony said it all, and what needed to be said in words was expressed so magnificently, and with his usual simplicity, by Benedict XVI in his homily. All other words are superfluous, but not the photos...

PHOTO SUMMARY:
BEATIFICATION DAY


The mini-slideshow from Vatican Radio online with highlights of the day, and an AP fact sheet on John Paul II.




Establishing shots of St. Peter's Square. In the top photo, I inserted an inset of the Mass that took place outside Cracow.


Photos I used for the Beatification Day banner.



Pope Benedict arrives for the ceremony.



As usual, too few photos of the Mass. The bottom panel shows the presentation of the Blessed's relic to Benedict XVI
by Suor Tobiana, John Paul II's chief housekeeper at the Vatican, and Sr. Marie Simon Pierre, the late Pope's 'miracle nun'.


Panel shows a videocap showing the Pope giving his homily, on a split screen with a JP2 poster, and photos from the End of the Mass,



Pope Benedict in prayer before the casket of John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica; the other prelates at the Mass followed.


The Pope met the President of Poland and his wife, and President Napolitano of Italy, as well as other visiting heads of state,
before the Basilica was opened to the public to pray at the casket.

If I had the material to use, I would obviously do a similar spread on John XXIII's beatification, but I have not had the time to research and assemble that...

And here is the text of Benedict's homily on May 1, 2011, one of his many loving tributes over three decades to his Pope and friend (I believe an Italian publisher has anthologized them all in a recent book):


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Six years ago, we gathered in this Square to celebrate the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor’s entire life, and especially of his witness in suffering.

Even then we perceived the fragrance of his sanctity, and in any number of ways God’s People showed their veneration for him. For this reason, with all due respect for the Church’s canonical norms, I wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste.

And now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!

I would like to offer a cordial greeting to all of you who on this happy occasion have come in such great numbers to Rome from all over the world – cardinals, patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, brother bishops and priests, official delegations, ambassadors and civil authorities, consecrated men and women and lay faithful, and I extend that greeting to all those who join us by radio and television.

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, which Blessed John Paul II entitled Divine Mercy Sunday. The date was chosen for today’s celebration because, in God’s providence, my predecessor died on the vigil of this feast.

Today is also the first day of May, Mary’s month, and the liturgical memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker.

All these elements serve to enrich our prayer, they help us in our pilgrimage through time and space; but in heaven a very different celebration is taking place among the angels and saints! Even so, God is but one, and one too is Christ the Lord, who like a bridge joins earth to heaven. At this moment we feel closer than ever, sharing as it were in the liturgy of heaven.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29). In today’s Gospel Jesus proclaims this beatitude: the beatitude of faith. For us, it is particularly striking because we are gathered to celebrate a beatification, but even more so because today the one proclaimed blessed is a Pope, a Successor of Peter, one who was called to confirm his brethren in the faith.

John Paul II is blessed because of his faith, a strong, generous and apostolic faith. We think at once of another beatitude: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Mt 16:17).

What did our heavenly Father reveal to Simon? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Because of this faith, Simon becomes Peter, the rock on which Jesus can build his Church.

The eternal beatitude of John Paul II, which today the Church rejoices to proclaim, is wholly contained in these sayings of Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon” and “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!”

It is the beatitude of faith, which John Paul II also received as a gift from God the Father for the building up of Christ’s Church.

Our thoughts turn to yet another beatitude, one which appears in the Gospel before all others. It is the beatitude of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer.

Mary, who had just conceived Jesus, was told by Saint Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lk 1:45).

The beatitude of faith has its model in Mary, and all of us rejoice that the beatification of John Paul II takes place on this first day of the month of Mary, beneath the maternal gaze of the one who by her faith sustained the faith of the Apostles and constantly sustains the faith of their successors, especially those called to occupy the Chair of Peter.

Mary does not appear in the accounts of Christ’s resurrection, yet hers is, as it were, a continual, hidden presence: she is the Mother to whom Jesus entrusted each of his disciples and the entire community.

In particular we can see how Saint John and Saint Luke record the powerful, maternal presence of Mary in the passages preceding those read in today’s Gospel and first reading.

In the account of Jesus’s death, Mary appears at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25), and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles she is seen in the midst of the disciples gathered in prayer in the Upper Room (Acts 1:14).

Today’s second reading also speaks to us of faith. Saint Peter himself, filled with spiritual enthusiasm, points out to the newly-baptized the reason for their hope and their joy.

I like to think how in this passage, at the beginning of his First Letter, Peter does not use language of exhortation; instead, he states a fact.

He writes: “you rejoice”, and he adds: “you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:6, 8-9).

All these verbs are in the indicative, because a new reality has come about in Christ’s resurrection, a reality to which faith opens the door. “This is the Lord’s doing”, says the Psalm (118:23), and “it is marvelous in our eyes”, the eyes of faith.

Dear brothers and sisters, today our eyes behold, in the full spiritual light of the risen Christ, the beloved and revered figure of John Paul II. Today his name is added to the host of those whom he proclaimed saints and blesseds during the almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate,

thereby forcefully emphasizing the universal vocation to the heights of the Christian life, to holiness, taught by the conciliar Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium.

All of us, as members of the people of God – bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women religious – are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the mystery of Christ and the Church.

Karol Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council, first as an auxiliary Bishop and then as Archbishop of Kraków. He was fully aware that the Council’s decision to devote the last chapter of its Constitution on the Church to Mary meant that the Mother of the Redeemer is held up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire Church.

This was the theological vision which Blessed John Paul II discovered as a young man and subsequently maintained and deepened throughout his life. A vision which is expressed in the scriptural image of the crucified Christ with Mary, his Mother, at his side.

This icon from the Gospel of John (19:25-27) was taken up in the episcopal and later the papal coat-of-arms of Karol Wojtyła: a golden cross with the letter “M” on the lower right and the motto “Totus tuus”, drawn from the well-known words of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in which Karol Wojtyła found a guiding light for his life:

“Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria" – I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 266).

In his Testament, the new Blessed wrote: “When, on 16 October 1978, the Conclave of Cardinals chose John Paul II, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, said to me: ‘The task of the new Pope will be to lead the Church into the Third Millennium’”.

And the Pope added:
“I would like once again to express my gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of the Second Vatican Council, to which, together with the whole Church – and especially with the whole episcopate – I feel indebted.

"I am convinced that it will long be granted to the new generations to draw from the treasures that this Council of the twentieth century has lavished upon us. As a Bishop who took part in the Council from the first to the last day, I desire to entrust this great patrimony to all who are and will be called in the future to put it into practice.

For my part, I thank the Eternal Shepherd, who has enabled me to serve this very great cause in the course of all the years of my Pontificate”.

And what is this “cause”? It is the same one that John Paul II presented during his first solemn Mass in Saint Peter’s Square in the unforgettable words: “Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ!”

What the newly-elected Pope asked of everyone, he was himself the first to do: society, culture, political and economic systems he opened up to Christ, turning back with the strength of a titan – a strength which came to him from God – a tide which appeared irreversible.

By his witness of faith, love and apostolic courage, accompanied by great human charisma, this exemplary son of Poland helped believers throughout the world not to be afraid to be called Christian, to belong to the Church, to speak of the Gospel.

In a word: he helped us not to fear the truth, because truth is the guarantee of liberty. To put it even more succinctly: he gave us the strength to believe in Christ, because Christ is Redemptor hominis, the Redeemer of man. This was the theme of his first encyclical, and the thread which runs though all the others.

When Karol Wojtyła ascended to the throne of Peter, he brought with him a deep understanding of the difference between Marxism and Christianity, based on their respective visions of man.

This was his message: man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man. With this message, which is the great legacy of the Second Vatican Council and of its “helmsman”, the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, John Paul II led the People of God across the threshold of the Third Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call “the threshold of hope”.

Throughout the long journey of preparation for the great Jubilee he directed Christianity once again to the future, the future of God, which transcends history while nonetheless directly affecting it.

He rightly reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress. He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an “Advent” spirit, in a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace.

Finally, on a more personal note, I would like to thank God for the gift of having worked for many years with Blessed Pope John Paul II. I had known him earlier and had esteemed him, but for twenty-three years, beginning in 1982 after he called me to Rome to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was at his side and came to revere him all the more.

My own service was sustained by his spiritual depth and by the richness of his insights. His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: he remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry.

Then too, there was his witness in suffering: the Lord gradually stripped him of everything, yet he remained ever a “rock”, as Christ desired. His profound humility, grounded in close union with Christ, enabled him to continue to lead the Church and to give to the world a message which became all the more eloquent as his physical strength declined.

In this way he lived out in an extraordinary way the vocation of every priest and bishop to become completely one with Jesus, whom he daily receives and offers in the Eucharist.

Blessed are you, beloved Pope John Paul II, because you believed! Continue, we implore you, to sustain from heaven the faith of God’s people. So many times you blessed us on this square from the [Apostolic] Palace. Today, we pray to you, Holy Father, bless us! Amen.]

P.S. The 5/2-5/3/11 issue of OR includes the last two sentences added on by the Holy Father extemporaneously to his homily before the Amen. I have included them in the English translation above. But this concluding paragraph is worth reading in Italian, as follows:
Beato te, amato Papa Giovanni Paolo II, perché hai creduto! Continua - ti preghiamo - a sostenere dal Cielo la fede del Popolo di Dio. Tante volte ci hai benedetto in questa Piazza dal Palazzo! Oggi, ti preghiamo: Santo Padre, ci benedica! Amen.
The final sentences of the homily touched me as much as the similarly spontaneous words he said in English during the Mass in St. Patrick's Catehdral in April 2008. Both times, it was the simple naturalness of his humility that was most moving.

And I appreciate that natural humility even more when I read the eulogies to Blessed John Paul II these days in which commentators praise his witness, his faith, his teaching and his holiness, as if he had been singular in all these things among the Popes of recent memory, and as if the present Pope himself [Benedict XVI at the time] did not have those same qualities.

It does not detract one bit from Karol Wojtyla's overwehlming personal merits to note that the Church has been blessed with Popes in the past 150 years - i.e., since modern times - each of whom truly deserved the honorific title 'Holy Father' or 'Your Holiness'.

But unlike the Popes before him, Blessed Wojtyla actually held the world stage for over a generation, through his extensive travels and the wonders of modern communication which amplified and literally broadcast his charisma to the whole world. Consequently, people around the world - not just in Italy, as it was for John XXIII - for the first time felt a loving familiarity with a Pope, as with a family member one not only loves but admires greatly because he brings out the best in us.

We can only pray that soon, the general perception of Benedict XVI by the faithful and the media will be just as overwhelmingly positive and loving for this gentle, positive and loving holy man who described himself that April evening in 2005 as a 'simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord' whom his fellow cardinals had chosen "after the great John Paul II". And one knows this was not empty rhetoric nor false modesty, but the genuine humility of one who does not try to be other than who he is. Fortunately for the Church and all of us, who he is happens to be in every way no less meritorious than St. Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II.



Obviously, I can only reiterate with much more force and overriding passion today the sentiments I expressed in May 2011 about the bias of media and public opinion against Benedict XVI, because today, even John Paul II has been eclipsed in the minds of many by the 'perfection' of Pope Francis...




Looking back to the beatification of John Paul II is a small way for me to make up for failing to mark the tenth anniversary of his death on April 2 - though I had left a blank post for the purpose - and of his funeral on April 8, which was, to all intents and purposes, the dramatic introduction to the world, on a unrepeatable historical occasion, of the man who would be elected his successor.

But I also want to underscore that St. John Paul II was the Pope of Divine Mercy, that the idea of 'mercy' was not something newly 'discovered' by JMB/PF, whose formal proclamation yesterday of his Extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy does not trump the annual celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday instituted by St. John Paul II, nor the widespread devotion around the world, established for decades, to the Divine Mercy of Jesus.

Very much apropos, here is Father Z's inspired initiative launched on this Divine Mercy Sunday:

Would that not appropriately crown the Extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy if St. John Paul II were to be declared 'Doctor of Mercy'? Your move, Pope Francis!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/04/2015 05:14]