Pope John XXIII
Pope Saint John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes XXIII), born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli reigned from 28 October 1958 to his death in 1963.
He was ordained a priest on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts, including papal nuncio in France and a delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him the Patriarch of Venice.
Roncalli was elected pope on 28 October 1958 at age 77 after 11 ballots. His selection was unexpected, and Roncalli himself had come to Rome with a return train ticket to Venice. He was the first pope to take the pontifical name of "John" upon election in more than 500 years, and his choice settled the complicated question of official numbering attached to this papal name due to the antipope of this name.
Pope John XXIII surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the first session opening on 11 October 1962. He did not live to see it to completion. John died of stomach cancer on 3 June 1963, four and a half years after his election and two months after the completion of his final and famed encyclical, Pacem in Terris."
He was beatified on 3 September 2000 by Pope John Paul and declared a saint by Pope Francis on 5 July 2013, based on his merits of opening the Second Vatican Council. He was canonised on 27 April 2014. His feast day is 11 October, the day of the first session of the Second Vatican Council.
“We deem it opportune to remind our children of their duty to take an active part in public life and to contribute toward the attainment of the common good of the entire human family as well as to that of their own political community. They should endeavor, therefore, in the light of their Christian faith and led by love, to insure that the various institutions—whether economic, social, cultural or political in purpose—should be such as not to create obstacles, but rather to facilitate or render less arduous man’s perfecting of himself in both the natural order and the supernatural.... Every believer in this world of ours must be a spark of light, a center of love, a vivifying leaven amidst his fellow men. And he will be this all the more perfectly, the more closely he lives in communion with God in the intimacy of his own soul”
“Only for today, I will devote ten minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul”
“Men are like wine-some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”
“If God created shadows it was to better emphasise the light.”
“I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.”
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”
“See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little.”
“Mankind is a great, an immense family... This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.”
“The mark of Cain is stamped upon our foreheads. Across the centuries, our brother Abel was lain in blood which we drew, and shed tears we caused by forgetting Thy love. Forgive us, Lord, for the curse we falsely attributed to their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying Thee a second time in their flesh. For we knew not what we did.”
“... just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.”
“Prayer is the raising of the mind to God.We must always remember this.The actual words matter less.”