Saints and Feast Days

In our second Inquiry session, we discussed Saints, The Communion of Saints, the church's process of officially declaring a person to be a saint and why we revere saints. 

 Often, a saint's feast day is on the day of his or her birth or death, but it can also be on the anniversary of a significant event in that saint's life.  Such is the case with Blessed Pope John XXIII, the pope responsible for bringing about the second vatican council.  49 years ago on October 11, Vatican II was convened and that is the feast day of John XXIII.

"What the great Pope John brought to the world, and what the Council he called emphasized, was a “novus mentis habitus” — a “new way of thinking” — about the world and the Church.  Pope John Paul II used to speak about this quite often in the early days of his own papacy: that the world and the church today demands a new way of thinking about how we relate to the people with whom we live and serve.  Today, this message seems more needed than ever." ---Deacon Bill Ditewig, author of the blog, "Deacons Today: Dalmatics and Beyond.