Because I don’t want the feature to become stale, I ordinarily try to keep the Quote of the Day posts to once per month. (Don’t ask me why I haven’t changed the title to Quote of the Month. As Ralph Waldo Emerson liked to say, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) The following quote though tickled me so much I just had to share it now rather than wait for some future date.
"It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope." –Pope John XXIII
Who was Blessed Pope John XXIII? I know you know, but in order to be foolishly consistent with the pattern of these quote posts, I’ll tell you anyway.
By the way, did you know that John XXIII kept a diary that has been published, titled Journal of a Soul? If not, now you do.
That quote brings a smile every time I read it. Thanks.
Blessed John XXIII had a great sense of humor, most of it self-depricating. He once told Bishop Sheen: “God knew from all eternity that I would be Pope. He had 80 years to work on me. Don’t you think He could have made me a little more photogenic?” Another time, he told Bishop Sheen: “Let’s have our picture taken together; it will make Spellman jealous.”
I had that book when I was a kid. He was always my favorite Pope. I still remember exactly where I was, and what I was doing when I heard he had died.
Wasn’t he once asked how many people work in the Vatican, he responded: “about half”.
Funny thing is, he was extraordinarily photogenic.