Fr. Paschal Scotti offered this homily on the feast day of Pope Saint John XXIII (October 11, 2024)

Fr. Paschal ScottiToday is the feast of Pope Saint John XXIII, the pope from 1958 to 1963, about 4 1/2 years. He is the person who called the Second Vatican Council, the 21st ecumenical council, into session – the council that in a sense we are still living through. And in the life and experiences of John XXIII we see both the strengths and the weaknesses of the old church, the pre-Vatican II church, the Tridentine church, the church that was spawned by the Council of Trent in the 16th century, and which more or less perdured until the 1960s.

The strengths first. John XXIII was born one of thirteen children of a poor sharecropper in northern Italy. He would likely have died a poor sharecropper in northern Italy had he not entered the seminary at the age of twelve – such seminaries had been developed by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. His talent, his ability would have been unnoticed, and he most likely would have died as his father and family died, poor sharecroppers. Another strength of Trent is an incredibly solid and very traditional piety. I read Journal of a Soul, a great book – it is by him, and I encourage you to read it. You see this very strong and solid, very rich, traditional piety – so traditional, that one person in the curia called him “an old fogie.” And you can see that, I think, if you read the book. It’s a wonderful book; everyone should read it, I think.

Now the weaknesses. The greatest weakness of the old church, the Tridentine church, the pre-Vatican II church, was that it was far too institutional, far more obsessed by institutions, physical realities, the physical reality of church in its structures and so forth. And that’s a great danger, and it proved to be a great danger. That’s the reason – I think, one of the reasons – in 1960 he had not revealed the Third Secret of Fatima, which endangered that very institutional view of the church, would endanger that more Tridentine, traditional view of the church, as a physical institution. It’s warning would have been very, very potent. And very scary. This also may have led him to hesitate to call an ecumenical council that he knew he probably would not be able to execute and finish – which he did not, clearly (he died in 1963 and the council went until 1965 and what followed we are still living through). His predecessor, Pius XII, thought about calling a council and then turned against it, saying it would be too dangerous that he couldn’t be sure he could live through it, so he did piecemeal reforms.

What can we learn from a life like John XXIII? We can take to his very traditional piety, his love of God, his love of neighbor. A solid, traditional Christian piety: very Catholic, very Tridentine, actually. We can take from him that profound spirituality, which all of us, all saints, should imitate. We can also take a warning that we are ourselves, to a great extent, prisoners of our history, of our experience. He had been safely ensconced in the Balkans in the Second World War, relatively safely, being an apostolic delegate to Greece and Turkey. He saw some elements, but not much, whereas Pius XII lived through the horrors of World War II in Italy, in occupied, Rome – far more traumatic, I think, than anything John XXIII ever experienced. And that made Pius more cautious and careful and these reforms than John XXIII (who in the end was far too optimistic about some of these things).

We should remember that saints are children of God, trying to do God‘s will. They are not perfect; not superheroes; not omniscient; not perfect in everything: they have their limitations. We should take from this that we have our limitations, too. As we try to expand our experience and our knowledge of the past, we can learn from the experience of others, so we don’t make the same mistakes that even great saints can make. Saints are human. John XXIII was human: not infinite, not omniscient, not perfect. He was incredible. We should be inspired by a lot of the things he said and wrote, like Journal of a Soul, and try to be friends of God and share in the divine nature. We should always be rooted far more in the reality of who God is – the spiritual, supernatural nature of God and Jesus Christ, the church, the mystical body of Christ. We are far less likely to go wrong if we remember that God and Jesus Christ is our foundation, not institutions. And that the church itself is founded on Jesus Christ, the supernatural reality of Jesus Christ, of God. Over and over again, if you read church history you see that people, even clerics, make mistakes. Sometimes heinous mistakes, evil mistakes; they do evil, and that can disillusion us.

Let us be inspired by the example of John XXIII to always do God’s will as best we can. To be rooted in the supernatural as much as we can. To be rooted in Jesus Christ as much as we can, as God wishes we can. To share that reality of the supernatural with the world. The world needs it desperately. John XXIII saw that the church could offer the world something that the world did not have. Perhaps he was too optimistic about what it could do and did do, what the result would be, but that was beyond his power. Having died in 1963, he could not see what would follow in 1965 and after. But let us recall to ourselves our own knowledge of God, experience of God, of the supernatural, so as to live as saints, more aware of the fullness of that reality and also our limitations. More aware of how to expand beyond those limitations with a greater knowledge of the world, of history, and with more experience.

In his homily for the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7, 2024, Abbot Matthew Stark quoted the following passage from a discourse by Pope St. John XXIII.Abbot Matthew Stark

This is from a discourse on the rosary by Pope John XXIII when he was Patriarch of Venice: “The rosary is the bible of the poor… How I wish this devotion were ever more widely diffused in your souls, in your families… in all the churches of the world! The rosary must be recited with profound spiritual understanding, not merely with lip service. Every decade presents a picture of happiness or sorrow or glory: it must be the subject of contemplation. This contemplation, with the gentle repetition of the ten Hail Marys, must lead to prayer, so that the devotion may be for our edification and encouragement. We are all brothers and sisters of Jesus. We are members of his mystical body: therefore we must try to grow like him. We are children of Mary: therefore we must always try to please her and do her honour, and by this means to attain first of all graces of the spiritual order and then also graces of the material order, always in perfect accordance with the Lord’s holy will. Let us raise our hearts, let us raise our arms, holding aloft the holy rosary. Mary, Help of Christians, give the Church victory and peace.”