Feast day memorial for Blessed Pope John Paul II

Published on October 21, 2019

22nd October 2019

Feast day memorial for Blessed Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II’s feast day is being celebrated by Catholics across the world today.

Blessed John Paul II was Beatified by his successor Pope Benedict XVI on May 1, 2011, six years after his passing‬.

October 22 date was chosen as John Paul II’s feast day each year in Rome and the dioceses of Poland to coincide the date in which he was installed as Pope in 1978. It is also an optional memorial day throughout the world. The feast day observation began this year with Masses on Saturday, and comments from those closest to the late Pope, who died in 2005.

Born Karol Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-ti-wah), Blessed John Paul II’s visited his native country in 1979 and told the Pole: “Do not be afraid.” The message was a call to action that continues today in the New Evangelisation.

Pope John Paul II visited Ireland from Saturday, 29 September to Monday, 1 October 1979, the first trip to Ireland by a pope. … It was one of John Paul’s first foreign visits as Pope, who had been elected in October 1978. The visit marked the centenary of the reputed apparitions at the Shrine of Knock in August 1879.

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Reflection

Jesus tells his disciples to look at him and touch him. Then he asks them for something to eat. What does Pope Francis say we can learn from these three actions of Jesus?
The second verb is to touch. By inviting the disciples to touch him, to verify that he is not a ghost—touch me!— Jesus indicates to them and to us that the relationship with him and with our brothers and sisters cannot remain “at a distance.” Christianity does not exist at a distance; Christianity does not exist only at the level of looking. Love requires looking and it also requires closeness; it requires contact, the sharing of life. The Good Samaritan did not limit himself to looking at that man whom he found half dead along the road: he stopped, he bent down, he treated his wounds, he touched him, he loaded him onto his mount and took him to the inn. And it is the same with Jesus himself: loving him means entering into a communion of life, a communion with him.
Being Christian is not first a doctrine or a moral ideal; it is a living relationship with him, with the Risen Lord: we look at him, we touch him, we are nourished by him and, transformed by his Love; we look at, touch and nourish others as brothers and sisters.
Pope Francis,