Saint of the Day for September 26

(September 26, 1897 - August 6, 1978)

Saint Paul VI’s Story

Born near Brescia in northern Italy, Giovanni Battista Montini was the second of three sons. His father, Giorgio, was a lawyer, editor, and eventually a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. His mother, Giuditta, was very involved in Catholic Action.

After ordination in 1920, Giovanni did graduate studies in literature, philosophy, and canon law in Rome before he joined the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1924, where he worked for 30 years. He was also chaplain to the Federation of Italian Catholic University Students, where he met and became a very good friend of Aldo Moro, who eventually became prime minister. Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigade in March 1978, and murdered two months later. A devastated Pope Paul VI presided at his funeral.

In 1954, Fr. Montini was named archbishop of Milan, where he sought to win disaffected workers back to the Catholic Church. He called himself the “archbishop of the workers” and visited factories regularly while overseeing the rebuilding of a local Church tremendously disrupted by World War II.

In 1958, Montini was the first of 23 cardinals named by Pope John XXIII, two months after the latter’s election as pope. Cardinal Montini helped in preparing Vatican II and participated enthusiastically in its first sessions. When he was elected pope in June 1963, he immediately decided to continue that Council, which had another three sessions before its conclusion on December 8, 1965. The day before Vatican II concluded, Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras revoked the excommunications that their predecessors had made in 1054. The pope worked very hard to ensure that bishops would approve the Council’s 16 documents by overwhelming majorities.

Paul VI had stunned the world by visiting the Holy Land in January 1964, and meeting Athenagoras, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in person. The pope made eight more international trips, including one in 1965, to visit New York City and speak on behalf of peace before the United Nations General Assembly. He also visited India, Columbia, Uganda, and seven Asian countries during a 10-day tour in 1970.

Also in 1965, he instituted the World Synod of Bishops, and the next year decreed that bishops must offer their resignations on reaching age 75. In 1970, he decided that cardinals over 80 would no longer vote in papal conclaves or head the Holy See’s major offices. He had increased the number of cardinals significantly, giving many countries their first cardinal. Eventually establishing diplomatic relations between the Holy See and 40 countries, he also instituted a permanent observer mission at the United Nations in 1964. Paul VI wrote seven encyclicals; his last one in 1968 on human life—Humanae Vitae—prohibited artificial birth control.

Pope Paul VI died at Castel Gandolfo on August 6, 1978, and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica. He was beatified on October 19, 2014, and canonized on October 14, 2018.

Reflection

Pope Saint Paul’s greatest accomplishment was the completion and implementation of Vatican II. Its decisions about liturgy were the first ones noticed by most Catholics, but its other documents—especially the ones about ecumenism, interfaith relations, divine revelation, religious liberty, the Church’s self-understanding and the Church’s work with the entire human family—have become the Catholic Church’s road map since 1965.

Click here for more on Pope Paul VI!

"...Say the Rosary every day Pray, pray a lot and offer the sacrifices for sinners. 
I'm the Lady of the Rosary, Only I will be able to help you. 
In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph."
         - Our Lady of Fatima

Come and pray the rosary live around the world.
The 15 Promises to those who pray the Holy Rosary

The practice of the Rosary dates back to the 11th century, when the illiterate religious recited Pater Nosters and Ave Marias in the place of the office in choir. These monks who could not read recited 150 Ave Marias, in lieu of the 150 psalms: this was called the Psalter of Mary. The Dominican Alain de la Roche spread the recitation of the Rosary in the 15th century. The Catholic rosary, made up of beads grouped in five decades, is the material object used for reciting the Rosary which includes joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious sets of mysteries.

… The word “rosary” means a crown of flowers …and comes from courtly love. A "rosarium," meaning "field of roses," denoted a collection of poems that a knight dedicated to his lady. To greet Mary with Ave Marias is like offering her roses by meditating with her on the gospel.

Pope Francis is very devoted to the Rosary. His secretary shared on Vatican Radio on March 10, 2014, that "the Pope does not waste a minute, he works tirelessly. When he feels the need for a short pause, he sits down and recites the Rosary. He prays three of them a day. He says: ‘It helps me relax.’ "

The Divine Mercy Chaplet is a relatively recent but very popular devotion revealed by Our Lord to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun. On Good Friday 1937, Christ appeared to Saint Faustina and asked her to recite this chaplet for nine days, starting on Good Friday and ending on the Octave of Easter (the Sunday after Easter Sunday), now known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Click Here for instruction as to how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Divine Mercy Chaplet sung and prayed by Donna Cori Gibson.

Experience the Power of Divine Mercy Every Day

Start each day off right! Join tens of thousands of Catholics receiving brief, daily reflections from the Diary of St. Faustina every morning.

thedivinemercy.org/dmdsignup

Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,

and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God’s hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father, Thou
Who dost the tongue with power imbue.

Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts o’erflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed,
of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen. 

Heavenly Father,In every age, you have been our refuge.Yet again and still, we stand before you asking for your protection on your holy Church.For the victims of abuse and their families,pour out your healing and your peace.For the Bishops of this country,continue to inspire their decisions,and guide them with your Spirit.For the thousands of good and faithful priests,who have followed yourcall to serve you and your people in holiness,sustain them by your grace.For the faithful who are angry, confused, and searching for answers,embrace them with your love,restore their trust,console them with your clear Gospel message,and renew them with your sacraments.We place our Church in your hands,for without you we can do nothing.May Jesus, our High Priest and true compass,continue to lead her in every thought and action –to be an instrument of justice,a source of consolation,a sacrament of unity,and a manifestation of your faithful covenant.Grant this through that same Jesus Christ, our Lord,who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Credit:Rita Thiron,Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commission

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