While preparing for the great Jubilee Year of 2000, St. John Paul II wrote an apostolic exhortation called Eccelsia in America, in which he traced the history of Christianity on the continent and looked forward to its many possibilities.
He began the exhortation recalling the 500th anniversary of the first evangelization of America, "when Christ first called America to faith," and then proceeded to explore how America encountered the Gospel message.
While the evangelization of the Americas was not always pure in motive or implementation, the good news of Jesus Christ was proclaimed to people who did not know of him. Furthermore, the massive migration from Europe that took place further solidified the Christian faith in a land that promised a new beginning for many people.
America thus became a new center of Christianity, one that has borne much fruit throughout the centuries.
American saints
St. John Paul II explained that the numerous saints who were raised in America bear witness to the fruitful evangelization that took place here:
The Saints are the true expression and the finest fruits of America's Christian identity. In them, the encounter with the living Christ “is so deep and demanding . . . that it becomes a fire which consumes them completely and impels them to build his Kingdom, to the point that Christ and the new Covenant are the meaning and the soul . . . of personal and communal life.”
He went on to point out the increasing number of beatifications and canonizations of Americans and how they have helped provide all Americans with heroic witnesses to imitate:
The beatifications and canonizations which have raised many sons and daughters of the continent to public veneration provide heroic models of the Christian life across the range of nations and social backgrounds. In beatifying or canonizing them, the Church points to them as powerful intercessors made one with Christ, the eternal High Priest, the mediator between God and man.
Furthermore, "The saints and the beatified of America accompany the men and women of today with fraternal concern in all their joys and sufferings, until the final encounter with the Lord."
Each year more and more holy men and women in North, South, and Central America are being recognized as saints, encouraging us in our own path to sainthood.
It reminds us that we are not exempt from the call to holiness, but are invited by Jesus to follow him, courageously taking up our personal crosses each and every day.
