The Pilgrim's Way: The Communion Of Saints

As we prepare for the feast of Saint John Paul II, we invite you to continue on this pilgrimage through our permanent exhibit, A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II. We hope you will walk through each of the nine galleries with us, so that you can get a taste of the spiritual and informational journey that awaits you here at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine.

This week we will explore the ninth gallery: The Communion of Saints. After learning about the canonization of John Paul II, pilgrims in this gallery find themselves drawn to the lives of many other saints.

As the late Holy Father often reminded us, every person is called to holiness, or to loving union with God. The saints of the Church live out this “universal call to holiness” in many unique ways. St. John Paul II saw evidence of this in every land, in every age group, and in every culture.

Remembering A Legacy

Earlier this spring, Our Sunday Visitor posted an article about the legacy of Saint John Paul II.  While the author admits that she only covers a fraction of his legacy, she does a wonderful job of capturing the impact the late Holy Father made on the Church and the world.

This is something we set out to do in our permanent exhibit, A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II, and today we decided to lay out how we preserve the pieces of our beloved John Paul’s legacy that the author mentions.

Theology of the Body

John Paul II’s anthropology gave the Church a new language with which to address the fallout of the sexual revolution and help Christians recover a sacramental understanding of the world.

World Youth Days

With each successive World Youth Day, Pope John Paul II helped the Church see that it didn’t need to change in order to inspire young people; rather, it needed to challenge young people to change — to be bolder, more faithful and more heroic.

The Upcoming Canonizations

The final gallery of our permanent exhibit encourages visitors to live out the universal call to 
holiness by reflecting upon the lives of some of the saints beatified and canonized by St. John Paul II.

Pope Francis recently announced that Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified Baouardy, an Arab mystic who became a Carmelite nun, will be canonized on May 17. Sister Mary was beatified by Saint John Paul II in 1983, nearly one hundred years after her death.

St. John Paul II beatified 1,338 people during his papacy, and he often emphasized the truth that all people are called to be saints. Let us ask Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified, whose incredible story can be found here, to pray for us today, that we may all live out the call to holiness as she did.

All Are Called To Holiness

Over the past few weeks, we've been exploring the themes of our permanent exhibit here on Open Wide the Doors. We joined Saint John Paul II on a pilgrimage of faith and love, as the narrator says in the video above.

We discovered that, during his younger years, St. John Paul II shone as a light in the darkness of his times. In the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, he pointed the Church away from her fears and back to Jesus. We saw that he gave himself entirely to the Blessed Mother, and that he shared her love for the human person. He followed in the footsteps of Jesus, making of gift of himself—the ultimate gift of love—to the entire world.

St. John Paul II lived a life of profound holiness, and as the late Holy Father said, we are all called to live this way. We are called “to accept and reciprocate the immense gifts which [God] bestowed” upon us.  We are offered the grace to live a saintly life! We just have to accept this grace and let it live through us.

We hope pilgrims walk away from the Saint John Paul II National Shrine inspired to do just that. This is why our final gallery, which is pictured above, calls visitors to reflect on the lives of some of the saints beatified and canonized by the late Holy Father. These holy men and women came from all walks of life, but they each lived out the call to holiness, and they are each praying for us now. We are all made to be saints, and hopefully our exhibit reminds pilgrims of this.

Thank you for joining us as we explored the themes of our permanent exhibit, A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II. We hope that you will prayerfully consider a pilgrimage to see these themes come to life yourself.

Saint John Paul II, Pray for Us!

Serving The True Master

Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, a modern day saint who found her way to God in the face of horrific suffering. During the homily for her Canonization, Blessed John Paul II said:  

"The law of the Lord is perfect, ... it gives wisdom to the simple" (Ps 19: 8). 
These words from today's Responsorial Psalm resound powerfully in the life of Sr. Josephine Bakhita. Abducted and sold into slavery at the tender age of seven, she suffered much at the hands of cruel masters. But she came to understand the profound truth that God, and not man, is the true Master of every human being, of every human life. This experience became a source of great wisdom for this humble daughter of Africa.

In today's world, countless women continue to be victimized, even in developed modern societies. In St. Josephine Bakhita we find a shining advocate of genuine emancipation. The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but the firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and violence, and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their rights.

Oh St. Josephine Bakhita, so simple and so childlike, pray for us on this day of your feast, that we may be like you in the face of hardship. 

For All the Saints!

Pope Benedict XVI canonized seven new saints two weeks ago, and a reflection upon his homily can help us to understand the profound importance of the Saints in the Catholic Church. He said:

With heroic courage they spent their lives in total consecration to the Lord and in the generous service of their brethren. They are sons and daughters of the Church who chose the path of service following the Lord. Holiness always rises up in the Church from the well-spring of the mystery of redemption, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah in the first reading: the Servant of the Lord is the righteous one who “shall make many to be accounted as righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities” (Is 53:11); he is Jesus Christ, crucified, risen and living in glory.

Today we remember these “sons and daughters of the Church” in joyful celebration, and we look to their witness and intercession for the future of the Church.

Remember to thank Our Father in Heaven for the seven new saints canonized two weeks ago, and of course, for our beloved Blessed John Paul II.

All Ye Holy Men and Women, Pray for Us!