George Matulaitis Journal

17 A GIFT FOR THE CHURCH An excerpt from the homily given by Pope John Paul II on June 28, 1987, on the occasion of the celebration of 600 years of Christianity in Lithuania and the beatification of Archbishop George Matulaitis. Today we wish to give thanks for all those who for six centuries became servants and ministers of the mysteries of God among your forebears. At the same time we give thanks that the Baptism of Lithuania continues to produce its saving fruits in our own century. A shining expression of this is the figure of Your Blessed fellow Countryman whom precisely today I have the joy of raising to the honors of the altar. Archbishop George Matulaitis-Matulewicz, whose life and merits have just been recounted, is a particular gift for the Church and the Lithuanian Nation in the present setting of the jubilee. A true “servant and apostle of Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1), zealous and indefatigable in his ministry, in his native land, in Poland, in Rome, and elsewhere, he was a pastor of courage and initiative, capable of facing, with prudence and a spirit of sacrifice, situations of difficulty for the Church, being concerned exclusively for the salvation of the souls entrusted to him. The fact that he successfully overcame every trial and enjoyed wide- spread esteem was due to his virtues, which he practiced in an extraordinary way. This is testified to by the wide variety of fields in which his pastoral work was rich in results: from the zealous accomplishment of his priestly mission to the carrying out of delicate missions entrusted to him by the Holy See; from teaching to the promotion of Catholic culture and social justice to a constant personal commitment to the service of the poorest and most needy. I would like to make special mention of the zeal with which he practiced and promoted the religious life, reforming the Congregation of Marian Clerics and founding the Congregations of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and the Servants of Jesus in the Eucharist. His spiritual sons and daughters, represented in great numbers here today, have received from him a precious inheritance of holiness and of dedication to the Church and the brethren. All this blossoming of results sprang from an