You Want To Be The Stone Floor

During the Second Vatican Council, young Bishop Karol Wojtyła learned much about the Church and her role in the world. During his time in Rome working with both Blessed John XXIII and Paul VI, he also reflected on the importance of the Office of Peter (the Office he would occupy shorty thereafter). Through poetry he expressed the fruits of these reflections:

In this place our feet meet the ground, on which were raised

so many walls and colonnades…if you don’t get lost in them but

                                    go on finding

unity and sense—

it is because She is leading you. She connects not only the

spaces of a

renaissance building, but also spaces In Us, 

who go ahead so very conscious of our weakness and disaster.

It is You, Peter. You want to be the Stone Floor, so that they will

pass over you

(going ahead, not knowing where), that they should go where you

                  lead their feet,

so that they should connect into one the spaces which through

                                    sight help the

thought to be born.

You want to be Him who serves the feet—like rock the hooves of

                                    sheep:

The rock is also the stone floor of the gigantic temple. The Pasture

is the cross.

Wojtyła would soon go on to “serve the feet” as Pope for nearly twenty-seven years.

As part of our countdown to the canonization of Blessed John Paul II, the Blessed John Paul II Shrine is spending the month reflecting on the late Holy Father’s time serving as bishop in Poland. Keep following us here and on our Facebook page for more stories about his life and legacy.

Poem is entitled “Stone Floor,” translated by George Weigel, Sister Emilia Ehrlich, OSU, and Marek Skwarnicki. From Wojtyła, Poezje i dramaty, p. 63. As presented in George Weigel's Witness to Hope, p. 157.

The Memorial of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Yes, Venerable Brothers and beloved sons and daughters! Elizabeth Ann Seton is a Saint! We rejoice and we are deeply moved that our apostolic ministry authorizes us to make this solemn declaration before all of you here present, before the holy Catholic Church, before our other Christian brethren in the world, before the entire American people, and before all humanity. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is a Saint! She is the first daughter of the United States of America to be glorified with this incomparable attribute!

…the late Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, attributed to her as primary and characteristic: “Elizabeth Ann Seton was wholly American!” Rejoice, we say to the great nation of the United States of America. Rejoice for your glorious daughter. Be proud of her. And know how to preserve her fruitful heritage. This most beautiful figure of a holy woman presents to the world and to history the affirmation of new and authentic riches that are yours: that religious spirituality which your temporal prosperity seemed to obscure and almost make impossible. Your land too, America, is indeed worthy of receiving into its fertile ground the seed of evangelical holiness. And here is a splendid proof-among many others-of this fact.

…we must recall that the most notable characteristic of our Saint is the fact that she was…the foundress of the first Religious Congregation of women in the United States. It was an offspring of the religious family of Saint Vincent de Paul, which later divided into various autonomous branches-five principal ones-now spread throughout the world. And yet all of them recognize their origin in the first group, that of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph's, personally established by Saint Elizabeth Seton at Emmitsburg in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The apostolate of helping the poor and the running of parochial schools in America had this humble, poor, courageous and glorious beginning.

-Homily of Paul VI for 1975 Canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton—wife, mother, widow, and religious—pray for America today, particularly for her schools. May they be safe places for children to learn and grow closer to the Father.  

Freshness, Vigor and Strength To Proclaim the Gospel

She is the community of believers, the community of hope lived and communicated, the community of brotherly love, and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love. She is the People of God immersed in the world, and often tempted by idols, and she always needs to hear the proclamation of the ‘mighty works of God’ which converted her to the Lord; she always needs to be called together a fresh by Him and reunited. In brief, this means she has a constant need of being evangelized, if she wishes to retain freshness, vigor and strength in order to proclaim the Gospel.

Pope Paul VI’s words are remembered in the Lineamenta for the upcoming Synod on the New Evangelization. They encompass the goal, the very essence of the New Evangelization: “to make the Church a community of witnesses to the Gospel.”

This has always been the goal for our missionary Church, but we now live in a time that offers new conditions and brings us new challenges. This call for new approaches doesn’t indicate that the Church has failed at drawing her members in. Rather, the nature of modern changes presents a need to “forge new paths.”

Now if the Church places the person of Jesus Christ at the center of her discernment, the Holy Spirit will lead us in these new approaches to evangelization. Church leaders have already been enlightened as to which sectors of society require focused attention. These are: the cultural sector, the social sector, social communications, the economy, scientific and technological research, and civic and political life.

Some modern changes have helped our Church community. For example, improvements in social communications allowed Pope Benedict XVI to inspire the youth with short Lenten reflections over Twitter. There are also great dangers in each of these sectors, though, which lead us to question our identities and the very foundation of our Faith.