We are fairly comfortable with having God as Our Father and we easily can identify Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but who is the Holy Spirit to us? Evidently Jesus thought highly of the Spirit because he said in Mark 3:28-30: “Truly I tell you, all sins and blasphemes will be forgiven for the sons of men. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Jesus also tells us in John 6: 17 “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you”. We so often forget about or don’t understand the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit is so important to us. It is the lifeblood of the Church.
Fortunately Pope Saint John XXIII knew about the power of the Holy Spirit. This very gentle and unassuming man who led the Church for only five years (1958-1963) accomplished so much for the Church and the world because he relied upon the power of the Holy Spirit. Pope John XXIII was born Angelo Giuseppi Roncalli, the fourth of thirteen children, of a farming family in Italy. He was a holy young man who began Spiritual Direction at the age of fourteen. He was given a good Catholic education and excelled in the Spiritual life. He had considerable reflective contact with both St. Charles Borromeo and St. Francis de Sales, two very holy and spiritual men. He also had several tastes of the worst of humanity. He served in the Italian Army in WWI as a medic and then as a Chaplain. He saw the horrors of war. After the war he continued serving the Church in many ways as a priest, then Bishop, and then Cardinal. During WWII he helped to save many Jews from the Nazi extermination camps.
Angelo Ronacalli was elected Pope at a time when conservative and liberal elements within the Church were having a hard time finding a person who they both could agree upon. Angelo Roncalli was chosen not just because of his holiness and experience in the Church, but also because he was older and would probably have a short pontificate. Angelo Roncalli surprised everyone by taking the name John XXIII. During the western schism of the 15th century, an antipope had used that name and no one had used it since. Angelo Roncalli said, “I will be called John. A name sweet to Us because it is the name of Our father, dear to Us because it is the name of the humble parish church where We received baptism, the solemn name of numberless cathedrals scattered throughout the world, and in the first place of the most holy Lateran Church, Our Cathedral. A name that in the extremely ancient series of Roman Pontiffs has the primacy of plurality. Twenty-two Johns of indisputable legitimacy are numbered among the Supreme Pontiffs, and almost all had a brief pontificate. We have preferred to hide the smallness of Our name behind this magnificent succession of Roman Pontiffs.” Now this was a very humble and holy man.
Pope John XXIII listened to the Holy Spirit and decided that it was time to “open the windows,” to let fresh air into a church much in need of reform. He called for a Church Council to ‘Throw open the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the spirit blow through.” The prayer of Pope John XXIII at the beginning of the Vatican II Council says, “Divine Spirit, renew your wonders in our time, as though for a new Pentecost, and grant that the holy church, preserving unanimous and continuous prayer, together with Mary the Mother of Jesus, and also under the guidance of St. Peter, may increase the reign of the Divine Saviour, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace, Amen”. The Council most definitely allowed the Holy Spirit to work. Pope John XXIII wanted to allow the Holy Spirit to move in and through the Church. Later Popes reflected on this.
Saint John Paul II wrote “I am convinced that this movement is a sign of His action of the Spirit. This world is much in need of this action of the Holy Spirit, and it needs many instruments for this action. Now I see this movement everywhere.”
Pope Benedict XVI said “What we learn in the New Testament on charisms, which appeared as visible signs of the coming of the Holy Spirit, is not an historical event of the past, but a reality ever alive. It is the same divine Spirit, soul of the Church, that acts in every age and those mysterious and effective interventions of the Spirit are manifest in our time in a providential way. The Movements and New Communities are like an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in contemporary society. We can, therefore, rightly say that one of the positive elements and aspects of the Community of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is precisely their emphasis on the charisms or gifts of the Holy Spirit and their merit lies in having recalled their topicality in the Church.” It would appear that the Vatican II council helped to set the stage for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal which has moved so powerfully through the Church and has helped us all better identify the Holy Spirit and His gifts. Pope Benedict also said, “His openness to the Holy Spirit made possible the “truly special gift” of Vatican II to the Church”
When Pope Francis canonized Pope John XXIII, he pointed to Pope John’s willingness to follow the Spirit: “In convening the Council, Saint John XXIII showed an exquisite openness to the Holy Spirit. He let himself be led and he was for the Church a pastor, a servant-leader, guided by the Holy Spirit. This was his great service to the Church; for this reason I like to think of him as the pope of openness to the Holy Spirit.”
This very humble man, Pope John XXIII, opened wide the doors of the Church and allowed the Holy Spirit to flow through. The people loved him and called him the “Good Pope”. Many people liked the humor that he showed. When the pope was innocently asked by a journalist how many people worked in the Vatican, he deadpanned, “About half of them.” Another time Pope John XXIII was visiting a hospital in Rome called the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, run by a group of Catholic sisters. The mother superior, deeply stirred by the papal visit, went up to him in order to introduce herself. “Most Holy Father,” she said, “I am the superior of the Holy Spirit.” “Well, I must say you’re very lucky,” replied the pope. “I’m only the Vicar of Christ.”
We are very fortunate that this great man listened to God’s Holy Spirit and because of that the Church was renewed by the Spirit through Vatican Council II. The day of his feast, October 11, was selected because it was the date of his opening the Second Vatican Council in 1962. It is interesting to note that Pope John XXIII confessed that he had some difficulty in falling asleep on the night of the memorable day that he announced the convocation of the Second Vatican Council. He said that he talked to himself in this way: “Giovanni, why don’t you sleep? Is it the pope or the Holy Spirit that governs the Church? It’s the Holy Spirit, no? Well, then, go to sleep, Giovanni!”