XI

Fifty years ago this week, First Lady Jackie Kennedy made a visit to Pope John XXIII. “It is reported that in preparation for her visit, John asked his secretary how he should address her. The secretary told him he could call her either ‘Mrs. Kennedy’ or ‘Madame.’ The pope tried the options out loud to decide which seemed best: ‘Mrs. Kennedy. Madame. Mrs. Kennedy…’ Then the doors were opened and she was announced. As she entered, John smiled, opened his arms wide and exclaimed ‘Jacqueline!’”
(Source: www.conciliaria.com)

X

Angelo Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII, wrote of turning sixty: “Sixty years old! It is the most beautiful age! Good health, in addition good sense, a happy disposition to see things more clearly, with kindness, optimism, and trust.”

IX

Angelo Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII, served for many years as a Vatican diplomat in Bulgaria and later in France. He once said: “In order to be a good diplomat, there are only two possible solutions: either one must be as mute as a mole, or garrulous to the point where one’s proposals lose importance. Given the fact that I am an Italian, I prefer the second method.”

VIII

Roncalli was the first to joke about his weight.  On meeting the French historian Daniel-Rops while serving as Apostolic Nuncio in Paris, he said, “Ah, cher monsieur Daniel-Rops, we will both have to say a prayer to God, beseeching Him to remove half the excess fat which I have and to give it to you!”  On another occasion, after attending a meeting at the French Academy, he said, “It’s a beautiful, most impressive place.  One hears beautiful things there.  Unfortunately, the seats are large enough only for a demi-nuncio.”  

VII

On his mentor, Bishop Radini-Tedeschi of Bergamo: “He was the polar star of my priesthood. His soul was more disposed to note merits than to exaggerate faults. He treated everybody with the greatest deference. He spoke with incomparable pleasantness, seasoning his conversation with unexpected witticisms. He was not authoritarian. He wanted all those around him to contribute their energies to the apostolate and to assume their proper responsibilities. He was discreet. One remarked a depth of inexhaustible gaiety in his soul.”

VI

Roncalli's first experience as a public speaker--a talk on the Immaculate Conception in a Roman parish shortly after his ordination--"was a disaster.  I mixed up quotations from the Old and the New Testaments.  I confused St. Alphonsus with St. Bernard.  I mistook writings of the Fathers for writings of the prophets.  A fiasco.  I was so ashamed."

V

“The sense of my smallness and of my nothingness has always been my good companion, keeping me humble and content and granting me the joy of consecrating myself as best I can to the uninterrupted exercise of obedience and charity.  I come from humble beginnings, and I was raised in a restraining, blessed poverty whose needs are few and which assures the growth of the highest and noblest virtues, and prepares one for the great ascents of life.”  

IV

Angelo went off to minor seminary at the early age of 10. But many years later he wrote to his parents, “Ever since I left home, towards the age of ten, I have read many books and learned many things that you could not have taught me. But what I learned from you remains the most precious and important, and it sustains and gives life to the many other things I learned later in so many years of study and teaching.”