Homily for the Canonization of Blessed Queen Hedwig

1. Gaude, mater Polonia! I repeat today this exhortation to joy which for centuries Poles have sung in memory of Saint Stanislaw. I repeat it because the place and the occasion are particularly appropriate. For we must turn again to the hill of Wawel, to the royal Cathedral, and place ourselves there before the relics of the Queen, the Lady of Wawel. Now the great day of her canonization has arrived! And so:

Gaude, mater Polonia,
Prole fecunda nobili,
Summi Regis magnalia
Laude frequenta vigili.

Hedwig, you have long awaited this solemn day. Almost six hundred years have passed since your death at a young age. Loved by the whole Nation, you who are at the beginning of the era of the Jagiellons, the foundress of the dynasty, foundress of the Jagiellonian University in the oldest part of Krakow, have long awaited this day of your canonization – the day on which the Church would solemnly proclaim that you are the holy Patron of Poland in its hereditary line – of the Poland by your efforts with Lithuania and Rus’: the Nation of three nations. Now this day has arrived. Many longed to experience this moment and were not able. Years and centuries passed, and it seemed that your canonization was even impossible. May this day be a day of joy not only for us, who are now alive, but also for all those who have not lived to see it on this earth. May this be a great day of the Communion of Saints. Gaude, mater Polonia!

2. Today’s Gospel turns our thoughts and hearts towards Baptism. Here we are again in Galilee, from which Christ sends his Apostles out to the whole world: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. God therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:18-20). This is the missionary mandate which the Apostles took upon themselves beginning on the day of Pentecost. They took it up and transmitted it to their successors. Through them, the apostolic message gradually spread throughout the world. And, towards the end of the First Millennium, the time came when Christ’s apostles reached the lands of the Piast. Then Mieszko I received Baptism and this – according to the conviction of the period – was at one and the same time the Baptism of Poland. In 1966 we celebrated the Millennium of that Baptism.

How happy the Primate of the Millennium, the Servant of God Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, would have been today if he had been able to share with us in this great day of Hedwig’s canonization! She was close to his heart, as she was to the great Metropolitans of Krakow, to the Cardinal Prince Adam Stefan Sapieha and the whole Polish Episcopate. Everyone thought that the canonization of Queen Hedwig would have been the culmination of the Millennium of the Baptism of Poland. Her canonization would also have been its fulfilment because, through the efforts of Queen Hedwig, the Poles, baptized in the tenth century, four centuries later undertook the apostolic mission and contributed to the evangelization and Baptism of their neighbours. Hedwig knew that her mission was to bring the Gospel to her Lithuanian brothers and sisters. She accomplished this with the help of her consort, King Wladyslaw Jagiello. On the Baltic a new Christian country arose, reborn in the water of Baptism, just as in the tenth century the same water had brought new life to the sons and daughters of the Polish Nation.

Sit Trinitati gloria, laus, honor, iubilatio … Today we thank the Most Holy Trinity for your wisdom, Hedwig. The author of the Book of Wisdom asks: “Who has learned your counsel, o Lord, unless you have given wisdom and sent your holy Spirit from on high?” (cf. Wis 9:7). Let us therefore give thanks to God the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit for your wisdom, Hedwig; because you recognized God’s design regarding not only your own vocation but also regarding the vocation of the nations: our own historic vocation and the vocation of Europe which, through your endeavours, as a continent completed its own evangelization, so that later it would be able to undertake the evangelization of other countries and other continents throughout the world. For Christ had said: “Go …, make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). Today we rejoice at your elevation to the altars. We rejoice in the name of all those nations of which you became mother in the faith. And we thank God for your holiness, for the mission which you carried out in our history; for your love of the Nation and the Church, for your love of Christ Crucified and Risen. Gaude, mater Polonia!

3. The greatest thing is love. “We know” – writes Saint John – “that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death” (1 Jn 3:14). And, therefore, he who loves shares in life, in that life which is from God. “By this we know love” – continues Saint John – “that he [Christ] laid down his life for us” (1 Jn 3:16). Thus we too should lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (cf. 1 Jn 3:16). Christ said that in this way, by giving our lives for the brethren, we show love. And this is the greatest love (cf. 1 Cor 13:13).

And we today, listening to the words of the Apostles, wish to tell you, our holy Queen, that you, as few others , had grasped this teaching of Christ and the Apostles. Often you would kneel at the feet of the Crucified One at Wawel to learn this generous love from Christ himself. And learn it you did. You showed by your life that the greatest thing is love. Do we not sing these words in a very ancient Polish song?

O holy Cross, tree more noble than all else,
no other is your equal in any other forest
except the tree which bears God himself. …
To die on the Cross for another is unheard-of goodness.
Who can do so today, for whom can one give one’s own soul?
Only the Lord Jesus did this, because he loved us to the end”
(cf. Crux Fidelis, 16th century)

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