The right pope at the right time: Homily for Tuesday, April 30, 2024

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The right pope at the right time

Today we celebrate another Dominican who was really the right person for the right time. Saint Pius V was really the Pope who was charged with implementing the Council of Trent.

The Council of Trent was a significant council in the history of the Church and for all kinds of wonderful reasons. If you know a little bit about the time that the Council of Trent arose, it was during the time of the Reformation. It was during the time where the Church needed reform, so that was a good thing, and the Church needed to recognize that there were things that needed to be addressed, which it did.

I remember in the history classes that I had in the seminary, one professor’s claim that had the Council of Trent occurred maybe 50 years earlier, the Reformation might not have happened because many of the significant problems of the day were addressed by the Council of Trent.

That said, the work of Pope Saint Pius V was not easy. Implementing major councils are not easy. They’re quite difficult, in fact. We see the work that he did and we see that he was faithful to God, that he was a kind and loving man who was concerned with the truth, which is one of the mottos of the Dominican order.

And for us, the truth is a person, and the biggest reason we celebrate Pius V is because he loved Jesus and he recognized that the truth that he was defending was the person of Jesus himself. It’s a reminder to us in our own lives, I think, this day that there are many things that need to be done. That just as the period of the Reformation was a time of really great crisis, so too we find ourselves still trying to digest the great council that was the Vatican Council, Vatican II.

In many ways, we experience the very same things in Pope Paul, who was the pope, much like Pius V, who was charged with implementing this great council. Perhaps the most important thing, though, is to recognize that in all that we do, we need to be guided by the person of Jesus. We need to be those persons who are directed to the Lord Jesus himself, allowing him to deepen his relationship with us and causing us to be greater in loving God and loving our neighbor.

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