Vatican City, Oct 10, 2018 / 05:02 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis recalled the legacy of St. John Paul II Wednesday, meeting at the Vatican with pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Kraków.
St. John Paul II “sought to ensure that the Church rose up as the guardian of the inalienable rights of man, of the family and of peoples, to be a sign of peace, justice and integral development for the entire human family,” the pope said Oct. 10 in the Paul VI Hall.
“At the same time, he always underlined the priority of grace and obedience to God’s will, before any human calculation.”
The pilgrimage is in thanksgiving for the life and papacy of St. John Paul II; the 40th anniversary of his election as Bishop of Rome will take place Oct. 16.
Born Karol Józef Wojtyła, St. John Paul II served the Archdiocese of Kraków as a priest, auxiliary bishop, and Ordinary before becoming pope.
“St. John Paul II enriched the universal Church with a great abundance of gifts, which for the most part he had inherited from the treasury of faith and holiness of your land and of your Church,” Pope Francis told the Cracovians.
“He carried in his heart and, so to say, in his flesh, the witness of the saints of Kraków: from Saint Stanislaus and Saint Jadwiga, Queen of Poland, to Saint Albert and Saint Faustina. From them he learned boundless devotion to God and the great sensitivity for every man; devotion and sensitivity that were manifested in his priestly, episcopal and papal ministry.”
The saint “received from God the great gift of knowing how to read the signs of the times in the light of the Gospel, and he made this fruitful to the benefit of the path of his people, of your people, who in their various sufferings have never lost faith in God or fidelity to their own culture, rooted in the Christian spirit,” Francis said.
It was in being faithful to these roots that St. John Paul II led the Church in guarding inalienable rights, he stated.
The pope said that St. John Paul II’s legacy is “a challenge to be faithful to Christ and to respond with joyful devotion to the call to holiness that the Lord addresses to each and every one of us, in our specific personal, family and social situation.”
“From heaven he accompanies your path: the families, the young and grandparents, priests, women religious and all consecrated persons; the most disadvantaged, the suffering. I too entrust myself with you to his intercession.”
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The will of God is transmitted in some areas by scripture…and in two areas, the saint didn’t like what he was reading there…ie capital punishment and wifely obedience irrespective of the husband’s sainthood. But Pope Francis knows if he praises the saint Pope, he’ll have tens of thousands listening to him in St. Peter’s Square next Sunday. If I look out my second floor window next Sunday, I see one teenager stealing the bmw medallion off a neighbor’s 328i hood…so he can wear it to a Halsey concert on a neck chain. So who is right….Francis or I? But thousands who received bread and fish from Christ on the mountainside…were no where near him as the crowd shouted for Barabbas. They could have saved him had they showed up. So crowds are not the real test in religion though they are in pop music…Jorja Smith..UK…Hammerstein ballroom Dec.15 nyc…probably filled like St. Peter’s square…some lux car medallions…” don’t want to feel you…don’t want you on my mind”…her hit about dropping an unfaithful premarital lover. Premarital is de rigeur in pop hit after pop hit…Bieber’s “Sorry”…Halsey’s “Bad at Love”…Sheerin’s “Shape of You”…Zedd’s “The Middle”.