The Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)
The Canonization of Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II
April 27, 2014

Listen to this homily! (mp3 file)

     I have long thought that we owe a big debt of gratitude to Thomas the apostle –- “doubting Thomas” -– for eliciting from Jesus what I think of as the ninth Beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed!” Had Thomas not been so testy, so slow to believe, so insistent upon seeing for himself, we would never have heard those slightly scolding but ever-so-consoling words from Jesus -- words that have embraced and affirmed believers down through the ages, including ourselves, who have never seen Jesus or touched his wounds but still have believed.

     The Church today celebrates the canonization of two such faithful believers who clung to their faith in Christ both when it was comforting to do so and when there was little or no comfort at all.  They became two great popes of the twentieth century, but long before they were popes, they were just Christian believers like you and me.

     The first is Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the son of Italian sharecroppers, born into poverty in a tiny, no-count village nestled in the foothills of the Alps during the waning years of the nineteenth century. Pious from his earliest days with a heart for God and the Mother of God, Angelo began his path to the priesthood at the early age of twelve. Years later, looking back, he could never really remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to be a priest.

     His path as a priest took him rather quickly to high places with significant promotions, but high places in the papal diplomatic service soon gave way to obscure assignments where he was allowed to languish in backwater places for years that turned into decades. He made the best of them, true believer that he was, and he made friends wherever he went -- Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece -- made friends with Jews, Muslims, Orthodox Christians and non-believers alike – made friends because he was warm, compassionate, quick to embrace, slow to judge.  When he was finally rescued from obscurity and given important positions first in Paris and later in Venice, no one was more surprised than he, and when, on the eleventh ballot of the deadlocked Conclave of 1958, he was elected Pope at the age of 77, it was not only he but the whole world that was surprised!

     The other saint we celebrate today is Pope John Paul II whose story, since it unfolded more recently, and since he quickly became a larger-than-life figure not only in the Church but on the world-stage, is better known to us.   Born Karol Wojtyla, in 1920, into a middle class Polish family (his father was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army), young Karol was raised close to the Church, lost his mother at an early age, quickly excelled as student, athlete, and actor, and was at the university studying philosophy and doing theater at the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland.  During those dark years, he joined the resistance, worked in a stone quarry, went on to study for the priesthood at a clandestine underground seminary, and was ordained a priest just as one brutal totalitarian regime, the Soviets, were replacing another, the Nazis.

     Then followed thirty years of serving as priest, professor of philosophy, and promoter of Polish culture and identity.  Wojtyla, ever the fearless foe of the Soviet ideology, was a priestly pied piper to the young university students.  Then came years as bishop, Archbishop, and Cardinal until, at the Conclave of 1978, in the wake of the untimely death of Pope John Paul I, he was elected Pope, the first non-Italian in nearly 500 years.

     They couldn’t have been more different, those two, yet both became powerful leaders and outstanding examples of what Jesus had in mind when he declared blessed those who have not seen yet have believed.  Both of them clung firmly to faith when faith was a walk in the dark - Roncalli, when the Church he loved treated him shabbily, marginalized him, and all but forgot about him until he was needed for jobs no one else could do.  Wojtyla clung to faith when standing up as a Catholic believer and defending the rights of the Church was to court suspicion and prosecution, and possibly to write one’s death-sentence.  Each of them in different ways was steadfastly and courageously among the ranks of those who believed even though they did not see.

     But to say that they did not see is not to say that they had no vision. Far from it!  Each had a vision that profoundly affected the life of the Church and even the course of human history.

     Pope John XXIII’s vision (Saint John XXIII) was of a Church renewed –- of a Church that had become stale, static and stand-offish opening its arms to all, throwing open its doors and windows to the fresh, invigorating breezes of the Holy Spirit.  In courageously calling the Second Vatican Council, he envisioned a Church in touch with people, a joyful Church that preferred the “medicine of mercy” to crack-downs and condemnations, a compassionate Church that, borrowing words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, would “notice everything, turn a blind eye to much, and correct a few things.”  He wanted an approachable Church, a Church no longer shut off from the modern world but in dialogue with it, speaking its language; he wanted an ecumenical Church, a learning Church as well as a teaching Church, a beacon of light and not a prophet of gloom.   No wonder people almost universally called him “Good Pope John!”

     Pope John Paul II’s vision (Saint John Paul) was of a Church in touch with its divine mission and its proud traditions -- this Church that almost single-handedly shaped so much of the culture and the history of Western Europe.  As Pope he led the universal Church with the same genius for leadership with which he had led the Polish Church -- closing its ranks, flexing its muscles, finding and using its voice for good on the world stage, unabashedly speaking truth to power, demanding a voice for the voiceless, freedom for the oppressed, justice for the poor and downtrodden.  Concurrent with all this and with the major role he played in the collapse of the Soviet Empire was the care he took within the Church to silence dissent and to push the reset button on the Second Vatican Council’s clock for reform. Underlying all he did were his personal charisma, and his ‘rock star’ status which won the world’s attention as well as the adulation of millions who called for his canonization on the day of his funeral.

     My friends in Christ, it’s not All Saints Day, but it is ‘Two Saints Day!’ And it’s Easter time: time for rejoicing, time for believing even though we have not seen, time for a renewal of hope, time to touch the Divine Mercy, time to honor our heroes and to celebrate our saints, including our two newest ones.

     It’s time, too, to give thanks for this present moment in our Church –- this ‘Francis moment’-- Francis, the Pope of surprises, the Pope of the people and of the poor.  Francis, who knew John XXIII was a saint even without that second miracle! Francis who decided to lift up these two new saints on the same day, perhaps hoping that in their very differences and in their appeal to divergent mentalities and worldviews within the Church, they might bring us together with all our differences so that, along with the doubting Apostle, we might make common confession of Jesus as Lord and God, and find ways to walk together on our common journey to God’s kingdom.  With their heavenly intercession, may it be so!

Father Michael G. Ryan