30 July 1991
Surabaya, Indonesia

My dear Sisters and my dear Confreres,

After Pope Paul VI canonized St. Justin de Jacobis on 26 October 1975, he spoke of him briefly at the window of his apartment before reciting the Angelus. The Pope said that Justin de Jacobis today has only one fault, namely, that "he is not better known." Perhaps the reason St. Justin is not better known is because of his humility. It was the humility of St. Justin that most impressed the Capuchin Bishop (later a Cardinal) who ordained Justin Bishop in 1849. Repeatedly in his reports to Rome, this Capuchin Bishop speaks of the humility of Justin de Jacobis. With difficulty Justin was persuaded to be ordained Bishop and when he was, it was in the dead of night (because of persecution) and with little ceremony in a country shed. It was through his deep and authentic humility that St. Justin cut a path into the hearts of the Orthodox clergy and people. His humility enabled him to be patient with the Orthodox clergy who were through prejudice initially opposed to him. It was his humility that made St. Justin de Jacobis a genuine ecumenist one hundred years before Vatican II. "God raised up this great figure of human perfection," wrote the Capuchin, Bishop Massaia, "on a base of humility, to be a lesson to Ethiopia and to the apostles who would carry on the work he began."

Some years ago a Vincentian priest from England made a visit to Ethiopia and to the region where St. Justin worked. On his return journey he visited me in Rome. What impressed this priest most was that the people of Alitena spoke of St. Justin as if he had died only yesterday. The priest went on to reflect that, although other missionaries had come and perhaps had worked as hard for the people, it was Abuna Jacob's memory which was most fresh. It was clear that St. Justin's personal holiness had left a fragrance among the people which had not yet vanished. St. Justin was a great evangelizer. He had a deep conviction that the person who first needed evangelization was himself, and he gave himself the task to preach the Gospel to himself every day. That conviction of St. Justin found expression in almost identical words in the masterly document, Evangelii Nuntiandi, written by Pope Paul VI in 1975. In that document one will find expressed many insights which St. Justin had already acquired and put into practice in this land of Ethiopia more than one hundred years ago.

Had St. Justin been alive and present at Vatican Council II, I imagine he would have spoken very eloquently from his own experience on such arguments as ecumenical relations among Christians, relations with non-Christians, the necessity of the Church presenting herself as poor to the world. He could have contributed excellent ideas to his fellow bishops when they were writing the document on the Church's Missions Ad Gentes. St. Justin as a missionary would have rejoiced at the title which Vatican Council II gave to what is its most fundamental document on the Church, Lumen Gentium. In one word, St. Justin was a man who lived before his time. He was in the best sense of the word a catholic man, a universal man. In one of his early addresses to the Ethiopian people we catch something of the earnest sincerity of this Vincentian priest and bishop. He said: "If you ask me who I am, I will reply, `I am a Roman Christian who loves the Christians of Ethiopia'. If anyone asks you, 'Who is this stranger?', reply, 'He is a Roman Christian who loves the Christians of Ethiopia more than his mother, more than his father, and who has left his friends, his relatives, his brothers, his father and his mother, in order to come here to visit us and to show his love for us.'"

To the intercession of this humble Vincentian bishop and missionary I commend the Vincentian family of the entire world and especially the Vincentian family here in Indonesia. Perhaps the human and spiritual greatness of this man, Italian by birth but Ethiopian by adoption, will never be fully known until we meet him in heaven.