And here’s finally the big moment. The name of Karol Wojtyla will be recorded in the canon of the Saints, and he will receive honor in the universal Church. One Pope, Benedict XVI, proclaimed him blessed, and now the other Pope, Francis, will proceed with his canonization. But not only him, as it seemed at the beginning, but together with John XXIII, whom Wojtyla himself proclaimed blessed. And, it was a decision for certain reasons special, not quite understood by those who were waiting for two separate ceremonies for two figures of the modern Church, so representative and so much loved.
And, I could think like that. But then, wondering, I came to the conclusion that this kind of weave of two stories and pontificate – connecting the Pope initiator of the Second Vatican Council with the Pope, who was his faithful interpreter and executor – could strengthen and radiate the continuity which actions which happened in the Church in recent times too often exposed to crisis.
First of all, by moving the date, the canonization of Karol Wojtyła will take place on the Divine Mercy Sunday, on his “feast”, as in the case of his beatification. Only three years have passed since then. It was the time to confirm the canonical process which was carried out efficiently. And to confirm holiness, which, if not yet officially sanctioned, is already recognized by the people of God, and somewhat celebrated all over the world.
And now? What will it mean for the Church and also for humanity, the proclamation of a saint like Wojtyła? The memory of him will be inscribed in his liturgical feast on October 22, in the new monuments erected in his honor, in dedicated squares, in some symposia with a high scientific level… Just that?
And, if it were only it, should we think of the inability or at least the difficulty of the Church in reading the events that took place of the turn of the millennium, what God wanted to say by giving the gift of such a man!
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaw BM Publishing House, Krakow 2013
