The papacy of Paul VI was a prophetic light, especially in his teachings on life and marriage. How much we need to reread his Humanae Vitae. In it, Paul VI clearly foresaw the many challenges we now have in protecting unborn life and the sanctity of marriage.

The papacy of John Paul I was a light to the nations shining brightly with its humility and joy. Papa Luciani called for a new evangelization of the world on the last day of his life, a call that was taken up by and credited to his successor.

The papacy of John Paul II was a light to the nations that brought a renewed vigor and youth our church. He truly brought the light of Christ to the entire world. John Paul II love the Mother of Jesus just as the Apostle John loved her who had been entrusted to him by the Lord, and he was a great evangelizer as was the Apostle Paul in his travels and preaching to untold millions throughout the world.

That light, which shined so brilliantly in these three men, as it did in the lives of Timothy and Titus, lives in each of us. We are lights to the world.

May God shine through our lives. May we be beacons of life, humility, joy, vigor and youthfulness to our world today.

. . . Try to have your faithful live the “Year of Faith” by speaking to them with enthusiasm about the Word of God, Jesus, and the Church more than about errors. And don’t be satisfied when your listeners are convinced: once they are convinced, they must act, they must act! Like Paul, strive so that “the word of God may make progress and be hailed by many others” (2 Thes. 3:1). Show by ardent words and actions, with a pure and charitable life, that you are “racing to grasp [Christ] since you have been grasped by Him” (cf. Phil. 3;12). When you talk about the Church, say that Christ loved her and “handed himself over for her. . . to sanctify her. . . in order to present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle. . . that she might be holy and without blemish” (cf. Eph. 5:25 27).
The Year of Faith also means shedding light on the faith. Now, faith is saying “yes” to God, clinging to Him with our whole spiritual being and making our own the truths which He has revealed to us and set before us by means of the Magisterium of the Church. Explain it to the faithful: this “yes” is an act of loving trust in God and at the same time an acceptance of His truths. We do not believe because we like these truths or because they are convenient to us, or because they are in agreement with scientific data or the fashion of the day, but because they have been revealed by Him who loves us and neither can nor will deceive us. If it were not for Him, we would not believe.
The Apostles and their successors, Pope and bishops, willed by Christ as official teachers of the Faith, are not in that position as masters, but simply as servants of the Word of God; they safeguard it and explain it without adding or taking away anything from it. Accepting and venerating their teaching is the means ordinarily necessary to arrive at the true Faith and the best way to be members of the Church. 

Guernon calls for the canonization of Luciani. Those of us who knew him echo his call.

I would like to provide you an exerpt of Guernon’s article:

There was a nobility in Luciani’s simplicity, and evidence of his humility abounds. As bishop of Vittorio-Veneto, for example, he visited his parishes by bicycle, a rather unassuming means of transport for a man of his station. Later, when taking official possession of St. Mark’s Basilica, he dispensed with the fanfare traditionally accorded the new patriarch of the ancient archdiocese of Venice. At his official residence he literallly opened his door to all who knocked: priests, penitents, prostitutes, drug addicts, drunks, the destitute – everyone.

Luciani eschewed the accouterments of high ecclesiastical officer, preferring a tattered black cassock to the regal purple and red hues signifying the ranks of bishop and cardinal to which he had reluctantly been raised. Strolling through the streets of Venice, Luciani would furtively stuff his zucchetto in his pocket, content to be mistaken for a parish priest by the pedestrians he encountered. After one such solitary twilight walk, the patriarch returned home sporting a bruised and swollen cheek. When the sisters asked him what had happened, he replied dispassionately, “Oh, nothing…. I met a drunkard…. He hit me in the face.”…..And then there were private instances — only recently disclosed — in which John Paul I revealed his abiding humility in ways the public could not have imagined.

Guernon concludes his article by stating: “Today, a broken world desperately needs moral enlightenment. The life and teachings of the first Pope John Paul can provide that in abundance. Thus it would be an incalculable loss to those in current generations – as well as future ones who never knew him – for his memory to fade into oblivion.”

I say, “Amen!” I am doing my small part in keeping his memory alive. I believe he will someday be recognized among those the Church universally recognizes as a Holy One, a Saint for us to imitate.

You can read the entire article at this link: www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=13064&comments=1#readcomments

Papa Luciani, pray for us!

I will post on the document after I have read it. I have a sense it will be talked about for quite sometime in the next number of years because the Church on that continent is thriving in many ways, and beset with mammoth problems on the other.

Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1104552.htm) is reporting on the trip. Log on to read.

One interesting thing the Holy Father is saying is that the Church’s message must be simple and concrete, and not seen as something European and unintelligible to Africans. By extension, I would suspect he would say the same if talking to other cultures. I was happy to read this, for it brings to mind the call for evangelization from the Church Fathers at Vatican II, and echoes the manner of speaking that Papa Luciani used so often in his preaching to the people entrusted to him.

God bless the Holy Father in his travels.

I offer here a section of the second century’s author homily. (My translation of the Italian text I use.)

But in what way do we recognize God? Doing what he says and not dishonoring his commandments; honoring him not only with our lips but with all our heart and mind. He says, in fact, through the mouth of Isaiah, “This people approach me with their words only, and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me.” (Is 29:13) Let us not be contented, then, to call him Lord; this does us no good. He in fact reminds us, “Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will save himself; only he who does good.” (cf. Mt 7: 21) Thus, brothers, we recognize him in the practical life, loving each other, fleeing from all impurity, slander, envy, living instead temperately, with mercy and goodness. We recall that our rule of life must be that of mutual help, not the lust for money. We recognize God exactly in this way and not doing the contrary. …. We run in the way of justice, we struggle according to the rule of life, we navigate through many obstacles so as to be crowned….

This unknown author over 2000 years ago penned words that remain true to this day, and his word are reminiscent of what Papa Luciani wrote during his years as bishop and later as Pope.

Here is the link: www.fondazionepapaluciani.com

Even though the address is in Italian, the site is in English.

Papa Luciani, pray for us!

Here are some other words written by Peter C. van Lierde about Luciani shortly after his death (my translation of the Italian):

To you, the faithful of Vatican City, and to all of you who nearly every day work here — a simple, sincere and fraternal word.

…. John Paul I…. a truly great gift, a new dawn of light after the long illuminating light of Pope Paul VI: two lights in the Church and the world, differing from one another but both coming from the same God.

God gave us Pope John Paul I and God has taken him. God is love and he gives divinely; and God always remains Love even when he takes away…

All of us have been struck and shaken by the sudden disappearance of the beloved Pope. We have seen the emotional response pervading the Church and the world, the near and the far, the believers and non-believers. All have bowed their heads, reflecting, meditating and praying…..

I would like to add a modest personal experience. Called by Holy Father John Paul I in the first week of his Pontificate, I had the unexpected joy to be able to speak with him. Suddenly, the Pope looked in my eyes with a firm glance, saying amiably: “I want to tell my Vicar General something confidentially. You may see, Monsignor, that I smile, I smile always, but believe me, inside, I suffer.”

Dear faithful ones, I believe I can tell you these profound words of our beloved Pope so that all of you, here in the Vatican, may be able to love him more with our faithful memory, with our holy and devoted service, and call upon him for the growth and vitality of the Church, today and in the future, and for our lives and health, for our work and our spiritual and material security.

I find van Lierde’s experience of Luciani telling him of  his sufferings noteworthy. We have always told of Luciani’s smile, his amiability and his warmth. Yet, he suffered, as do all saints.

Papa Luciani, pray for us!

Dear Priests, Religious and citizens of Rome,

With an anguished spirit I have the sad obligation to tell you of the sudden death of Holy Father John Paul I. Before such a sad, unthinkable and mysterious event there remains only a turning to Faith, supported by Christian hope that always leads to true life and for us to repeat: “Lord you know all! May your holy name be forever blessed.”

In one month, the deceased Pope earned for himself the affection of Christians. His pontificate was received by all the world as a sign of faith.

Now, we must pray for his blessed soul.

All the bells of Rome, today at noon and in the evening, and then for the next two days that follow, will ring in mourning.

But above all all the parish and religious communities will gather in insistent prayer for the dead Holy Father, commending his soul to God and praying also for the Holy Catholic Church in mourning.

Thirty-three years ago today, Pope John Paul I gave his last address for he died late that night. On September 28, 1978 he met a group of bishops from the Philippines on their ad limina visit. In this address he spoke of evangelization, a huge project that his successor would pick up and make one of his center pieces of his papacy.

As I have previously posted, it seems that the New Evangelization started the day Luciani died.

Here are are a few excerpts from the address:

Among the rights of the faithful, one of the greatest is the right to receive God’s word in all its entirety and purity, with all its exigencies and power. A great challenge of our day is the full evangelization of all those who have been baptized… Our message must be a clear proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ…..

For us, evangelization involves an explicit teaching about the name of Jesus, his identity, his teaching, his Kingdom and his promises….the Church [in} her pastoral charity would be incomplete if she did not point out even “higher needs.”… we must help our people to realize just how much they need Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Mary. He is their Savior, the key to their destiny and to the destiny of all humanity…. to proclaim his truth, his love, his justice and salvation in word and example before its neighbors.. to proclaim with the entire Church that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of the world.

We ask the sick and the handicapped to understand their important part in God’s plan, and to realize just how much evangelization depends on them.

Read the entire address at:

www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/speeches/documents/hf_jp-i_spe_28091978_philippian-bishops_en.html

Within hours of uttering these words, Pope John Paul I would die unexpectedly of a massive heart attack after only 33 days on the throne of St. Peter. It seems to me that Luciani’s final sentence above was a prophecy of sorts regarding Wojtyla’s death and the witness it would provide to the world.

Those of us who were privileged to have been able to approach him or to have served him directly in some manner cannot forget the impact his smile, his presence and his words had upon us.  He has been overshadowed by his successor, Blessed Pope John Paul II, but Luciani in a now rather silent way laid the cornerstones to John Paul II’s legacy.

Luciani was, I dare to say, the papal parent of Wojtyla.

I find it unfortunate that what has been written about most broadly about Luciani since his death have been conspiracy theories and the like about the events of this night 33 years ago today. What I am striving to do, along with notable others, is keep alive Luciani’s memory, and his teaching.

He was always the servant of God. He died in the arms of the One he loved. May his memory endure, and may his cause for canonization proceed without haste.

Papa Luciani, pray for us!

In his General Audience on September 27, 1978 Pope John Paul I spoke of Pope John XXIII’s “third lamp of sanctification” which is charity.

He began with a prayer his mother taught him:

My God, with all my heart above all things I love You, infinite good and our eternal happiness, and for your sake I love my neighbor as myself and forgive offenses received. Oh Lord, may I love you more and more.

Luciani prayed this prayer, he said, several times each day. He takes this prayer, from his  mother and uses it to give structure to his thoughts about love.

Here are some excerpts from his address:

To love God is therefore a journey with one’s heart to God. A wonderful journey! … The journeys of love for God are far more interesting. You read them in the lives of the Saints. St. Vincent de Paul, whose feast we celebrate today, for example is a giant of charity: he loved God more than a father and a mother, and he himself was a father for prisoners, sick people, orphans and the poor….

The Journey also brings sacrifices, but these must not stop us. Jesus is on the cross; you want to kiss him?… Love for God is also a mysterious journey; that is, I cannot start unless God takes the initiative first… St. Augustine asked himself: but what about human freedom? God, however, who willed and constructed this freedom, knows how to respect it, though bringing hearts to the point he intended… God draws you not only in a way that you yourself want, but even in such a way that you enjoy being drawn (St. Augustine, Tractates of the Gospel of John, 26.4).

With all my heart…That “all” repeated and applied insistently is really the banner of Christian maximalism. And it is right: God is too great, he deserves too much from us for us to be able to throw to him, as poor Lazarus, a few crumbs of our time and our heart. He is infinite good and will be our eternal happiness: money, pleasure, the fortunes of the world, compared to him, are just fragments… It would not be wise to give so much of ourselves to these things and little of ourselves to Jesus…

Above everything else.We must love “both God and man’; the latter, however, never more than God or against God or as much as God. In other words, love of God, though prevalent, is not exclusive…..

And for your sake I love my neighbor.Here we are in the presence of two loves which are “twin brothers” and inseparable…. Only if I love God in earnest can I love them as sons of God….the seven corporal works of mercy… the list is not complete and it would be necessary to update it… it is not longer a question of this or that individual; there are whole peoples….Consequently, “every exhausting armaments race becomes an intolerable scandal” (Paul VI, Populorum Progessio, 53)…

Lord, may I love you more and more.Here, too, there is obedience to a commandment of God, who put thirst for progress in our hearts….That means, to love God not a little, but so much; not to stop at the point at which we have arrived, but with his help, to progress in love.

Read his entire address at:

www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/audiences/documents/hf_jp-i_aud_27091978_en.html

Of course one does not really know, but I cannot help but think that Luciani, despite saying apparently to others that his pontificate would be short-lived, also had planned a lengthy one. He seems to be setting some foundations which he would have used as the basis for a complete structure of his teachings and thoughts. He weaves into this address the thoughts of Pope John XXII and Pope Paul VI, seems to be opening the doors to future references to global matters such as socioeconomic issues, and looking to St. Augustine for theological rooting. Just my interpretation… if any of you out there are better versed in this, I would love to hear you perspective.

Papa Luciani, pray for us!