Poland celebrates sainthood of its most illustrious son
April 28, 2014 - Tens of thousands of Polish Catholics celebrated their country's
newest saint, John Paul II on Sunday, by converging on the southern city where he
served as cardinal-archbishop before becoming pope. About 50,000 people attended
an open-air Mass at the Divine Mercy sanctuary on the outskirts of Krakow. Pope Francis
had decided on the April 27 Divine Mercy Sunday as the canonization day of John XXIII
and John Paul II, particularly keeping in mind John Paul who as a great apostle and
devotee of Divine Mercy instituted the feast on the Sunday after Easter. "Let this
moment on this exceptional night and day become the decisive moment at which we begin
gathering graces for heaven and our own sanctity," said Auxiliary Bishop Damian Muskus
of Krakow at the shrine. Krakow's streets and squares were decorated with posters
of Pope John Paul and Polish and Vatican flags. However, festivities were staged
nationwide in towns and cities, including the capital, Warsaw. At the Jasna Gora
national Marian shrine in Czestochowa, where thousands of pilgrims gathered, Pallotine
monks organized a giant telecast of the Vatican canonization ceremony for the homeless.
And religious leaders celebrated an outdoor Mass in the Tatra Mountains, where St.
John Paul hiked as a youth. St. John Paul II’s birthplace of Wadowice also celebrated
the sainthood of its most famous son. Some 500 Wadowice parishioners traveled to
Rome with dozens of Polish church and government leaders for the canonization.