VATICAN CITY, JAN. 14, 2011 (Zenit.org).- When Pope John Paul II is beatified on May 1, Divine Mercy Sunday, the faithful will be celebrating a day on which he himself wanted the Church to turn its gaze toward this «consoling and enthusiastic greatness.»
This reflection was offered by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, in reference to Benedict XVI’s approval today of a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the Polish Pope’s intercession, and the subsequent announcement of the date of his beatification.
The Holy Father will be beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday, which this year falls on May 1, just six years after his April 2, 2005, death on the vigil of the same feast.
«His life and his pontificate were characterized by the passion to make known to the world in which he lived — the world of our tragic history in the course of two millennia — the consoling and enthusiastic greatness of God’s mercy. This is what the world needs,» Father Lombardi said. «That is why we will have the joy of celebrating the solemn beatification on the day in which he himself wanted the whole Church to fix her gaze and prayer on this Divine Mercy.»
Father Lombardi spoke of John Paul II on the most recent edition of Vatican Television’s «Octava Dies.»
«The Church recognizes that Karol Wojtyla gave eminent and exemplary witness of Christian life, he is a friend and an intercessor who helps the people to direct themselves to God and to encounter him,» he said.
Still, the Jesuit added, although John Paul II’s works are extraordinary, «we are not concentrating our attention [there], but on his spiritual source: his faith, his hope, his charity.»
Father Lombardi proposed the Holy Father’s works should be admired «precisely because they are an expression of the depth and authenticity of his relationship with God, of his love for Christ and for all human persons, beginning with the poor and the weak; of his tender filial love for the Mother of Jesus.»
The spokesman reflected that the Polish Pontiff’s legacy is his «profound and prolonged recollection in prayer; his desire to celebrate and proclaim Jesus the Redeemer and Savior of man, to make him known and loved by young people and the whole world.»
He will be remembered, the Jesuit added, «for his affectionate interest in the sick and the suffering, for his visits to peoples most in need of food and justice; finally, for his patient and authentic experience of personal suffering, of sickness lived in faith before God and before all of us.»
