Did you know that the Popes wear white since Pius V was elected Pontiff and decided to keep his white Dominican habit instead of the purple robe that the Pontiffs used to wear until then?
Since that year, 1556, the Popes have worn white robes to this day.
The city of Rome dedicated a square to Saint John Paul II on 4-7-2013, the day on which Divine Mercy Sunday was celebrated, a feast that was instituted precisely by Pope John Paul II.
The only new festival instituted by the Catholic Church during the 20th century was that of Divine Mercy, which is celebrated on the Sunday following Easter Sunday.
In 2011 in Swiebodzin, in western Poland, the tallest statue of Christ in the world was erected, surpassing Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
Pope Francis dressed in Krakow, during the World Youth Day in July 2016, a chasuble made of recycled fabric sewn by young Iraqis Christian refugees in Jordan.
When talking about Saint Francis of Assisi, many people think of the fact that he is a friend of nature and animals. Perhaps relatively few know that Saint Francis of Assisi is the Patron Saint of Ecology; officially declared by Pope John Paul II on November 29, 1979.
Did you know that 3,200,000 young people participated in the World Youth Day in Krakow (Poland) in 2016?
The tallest statue of Saint John Paul II in the world.
It was inaugurated on April 13, 2013 in Czestochowa, Poland. The statue weighs 10 tons and is 13.8 meters tall. It is a little bigger than the one in Chile, 12 meters high. Interestingly, the tallest statue of the long-awaited Polish Pope stands in a miniature park where there are reproductions of religious architecture, such as the sanctuaries of Lourdes, Fátima and Santiago de Compostela.
For the first time in 95 years, Catholics in St. Petersburg were able to participate in the Corpus Christi procession. It took place on June 2, 2013. The procession with the Blessed Sacrament traveled three kilometers from the city. The last Corpus Christi procession in Russia had been held in 1918. After the Bolshevik Revolution, religious demonstrations were banned, putting an end to a long common tradition of the Churches of East and West. The veto forced Catholics to celebrate the processions inside the churches, and in no case, through the streets.
Did you know that the Catholic Church dedicates each day of the week to a certain devotion? These are:
Monday: Souls of Purgatory
Tuesday: Holy Guardian Angels
Wednesday: San Jose
Thursday: Holy Eucharist
Friday: The Passion of the Lord
Saturday: Blessed Virgin Mary
Sunday: Holy Trinity
Did you know that the Catholic Church dedicates each month of the year to a certain devotion? These are:
January: Jesus Child.
February: Holy Trinity.
March: Saint Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary.
April: Resurrection of Jesus Christ and Easter Joy.
May: Month of the Virgin Mary.
June: Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
July: The most precious blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin of Mount Carmel.
August: Month dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
September: Month dedicated to the sorrows of Our Lady.
October: The Virgin of the Rosary.
November: To the Souls of Purgatory.
December: To the childhood of Jesus.
More curiosities…
Known and famous in Spain is the case of the corporals of Daroca. A priest was preparing to administer Communion to some warriors, when the Arabs suddenly attacked the camp of the Christian armies, located near the castle of Codol. To avoid profanation, the celebrant hastily put away the Holy Forms by wrapping them in the corporals on the altar.
When, once the danger had passed, he went to put them in the Tabernacle, the consecrated Hosts had bled and had adhered, by their own blood, to the cloth that contained them. Certain that it had been a miracle, the Christians launched themselves against the Arabs and defeated them
After the victory, the cities of Teruel, Calatayud and Daroca raffled off the Corporals, staying in the latter city. And every year, on Corpus Christi, the Holy Mystery is publicly exposed in Daroca, as they call it there.
The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Spain), is a veritable reliquary of wonders, of which the most esteemed is the Holy Form, still uncorrupted after four centuries, which was profaned by a heretic, in the company of other Zvinglians , in Gorcamia, the Netherlands. In it you can clearly see three breakages caused by the nails of the boots worn by the one who stepped on it, and from which blood gushed at the time of committing the sacrilege. Faced with this prodigy, the profaner converted to the Catholic religion, and later became a Franciscan religious. It was donated by Rodulgo II to Philip II, the pious founder of El Escorial. On September 29 and October 28, a solemn exhibition of the Sacred Form is made, recalling historical dates related to it.
Her name was Maria. As far as the meaning of the word Maria is concerned, specialists have come to list up to 80 etymologies of the name of Maria. The set constitutes a varied and charming litany of praises: Exalted, Beloved, Beautiful, Lady, Sovereign… Saint Bede writes that in Hebrew it means: Star of the sea, and in Syriac: Lady. Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas maintain the same and add a reason of convenience: as the star directs sailors towards the port, Mary directs men to Jesus Christ.
Of all the etymologies adduced, the ones that offer the most guarantees are three: María would come from Myriam: Amada de Yahvé; Maria: Madam. Another interpretation derives the word Maria from the root Rym which means to be tall. In this course Mary means the high place where God dwells pleased. The truth is that the most universally accepted etymological meaning agrees wonderfully with the historical-salvific meaning of the Person of Mary. This name translates perfectly that She is the Beloved par excellence of God. And this is the meaning that many give to the name of Myriam or Maryam from which Maria comes.
On October 1, 1999, Pope John Paul II proclaimed three women in the Vatican, Saints Edith Stein (Discalced Carmelite), Catherine of Siena (Dominica) and Bridget of Sweden, co-patrons of Europe. His proclamation was made in Saint Peter’s Basilica during the solemn opening mass of the II Special Synod of Bishops for Europe.
Saint Thomas Aquinas had a “vision” one day while celebrating Mass. He was at the time writing the Addition on the Sacraments, and wrote no more. “I can’t take it anymore,” she repeated when they insisted that she finish. “What I have written, compared to what I have seen, now seems like hay to me. Don’t insist, I can’t take it anymore.”
The Pastoral Bible in Chinese: After eight years of intense work, Fr. Bernardo Hurault, together with Fr. Pedro Campus, Superior General of the Society of Saint Paul, presented the First Pastoral Bible published in Chinese to the Pope. The first edition has been distributed in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, Canada and Singapore. The new edition, in simplified characters, will instead be distributed in Mainland China.
The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Rome, Italy) is the oldest Church dedicated in the West to the Virgin Mary. In this temple the greater part of the cradle of Bethlehem is preserved. On Christmas Eve, the Holy Father, who is also Bishop of Rome, usually celebrates the Eucharist in the basilica.
When the first submarine cable between England and America was opened, Queen Victoria sent the first message with these words. “Glory to God in heaven and peace on earth to men of good will.”
Every year there are 18 million more Catholics than the year before. During a single pontificate, that of Saint Paul VI, the Catholic religion grew from 600 to 750 million (between 1963 and 1978). During the pontificate of John Paul II, the number of Catholics increased from the initial 750 million to 1,119 million.
The effort that Saint Paul made in his travels is amazing. If we count only the number of kilometers of his three trips through Asia Minor, Holzner (p. 247), we arrive at the following result:
first tripe, from Atalia to Derbe: 1000 km (round trip).
Second trip, from Tarsus to Tróas: 1400 km. If the excursion through the region of Galatia, to its capital Ancyra, is included, 526 km must be added. In other words, on the second trip, only within Asia Minor, Pablo traveled at least 1,926 km. Let us not forget that the description of the Book of Acts is very general. He is content to say that he crosses the region of Galatia and Mysia.
Third trip, from Tarsus to Ephesus: 1,150 km. In addition, he visited the territory of Galatia. In this trip, only within Asia Minor, Pablo walked a minimum of 1700 kms.
Add to this the journeys through Europe and by sea, the difficult roads, the differences in height, the increase in roads or causeways over the current railway, and one will understand the “inexpressible admiration that Deissman felt in view of the purely physical effort of the traveler Paul, who could rightly say that he flogged his body and tamed it like a slave” (1 Cor 9:27).
The number of days or trips per day can be calculated based on 30-35 km per day. It is counted as an extraordinary case to have traveled by vehicle 27 miles (37 km) in the six hours of the morning. The usual thing was to spend the whole day for that distance. Paul generally made his journeys on foot ( 2 Cor 11, 236 ).
The flag of the European Union is inspired by the description of the Virgin of the Apocalypse. Europe, however, will not recognize its two-thousand-year-old Christian roots in its Constitution.
Is this one of those “cunning tricks of History” that Hegel spoke of? Of course, the case is really curious. On Thursday, July 10, 2003, the definitive draft of the European Constitution was presented in Brussels in a solemn ceremony. But this Constitution, when defining its own symbols, solemnly confirms that the European flag is blue, with twelve stars arranged in a circle. Well, both the colors and the symbols, as well as their arrangement, come directly from Marian devotion: they are an explicit sign of devotion to the Virgin Mary.
That’s how it is. The stars are those of the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a Woman clothed with the Sun, with the Moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” That mysterious Woman, in the Christian tradition, is the Mother of Jesus. The colors also come from the cult: the blue of the sky and the white of virginal purity. And it is that in the original design, the stars were silver, and only at one point…