Pope John Paul

In Arguing With the Pope, journalist Barbara Harrison wrote about Pope John Paul’s trip to Denver in August of 1993. He was there because it was the eighth World Youth Day.  I remember little more than my complete sense of bafflement as I read her piece. How could this man evoke the thunderous adulation and joy among hundreds of thousands of kids? Along with writer Harrison,  I was astounded by his troglodyte-like claims about abortion, contraception, women, and sexuality in general. Angrily denouncing him and his views, I was only dimly aware that my reaction was highly suggestive of Something important that I was ignoring. Had anyone predicted I would one day devoutly defend all that he stood for, I’d have been incredulous.

However, following my conversion, I couldn’t get enough of Pope John Paul ll. Devouring many of his encyclicals, I was astounded by the wisdom and gentleness he possessed for us, especially women. I realized that I had a friend in him upon reading his book, The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae).  There is a passage in the book that felt as if he were writing directly to me.

His words pierced…and then healed.

Wednesday, October 22, is his feast day. And so it’s fitting to ponder and write about this gigantic intellect and man our world was gifted with. Back when he was ‘just’ an Archbishop, Karol Wojtyla wrote The Sign of Contradiction. The title recalls Simeon’s prophecy about the infant that the young Mary holds in her arms at the Presentation in the Temple. He will be a sign of contradiction.

Behold, he is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and as a sign of contradiction; and for your part, a sword will pierce your soul…“

March 1976 Lenten Retreat

The book is a compilation of a series of meditations for a March 1976 Lenten Retreat given for Pope Pius VI, the papal household, and the cardinals and bishops of the Roman Curia. Archbishop Karol Wojtyla writes of Genesis as if it is unfolding now. Not as if the garden were metaphorical or historical, like so many of us believe, but as an existent reality.

“…Your eyes will be opened and you will become like God, acquiring knowledge of good and evil.”

These are the words spoken to Eve when she answers the serpent, modifying his statement to her. Denying her Creator does not even occur to her. Wotjoyla’s fifty-year-old words in the Sign of Contradiction chill:

For the full and complete temptation offered by he who was more cunning than all of the animals that God had made, we needed to plunge down to a world where the creature and the creator are one and the same.

The world of today.

It’s in Eden where the battle between the Word and the [a most arresting phrase he uses for Satan]  Anti-Word began. When the ‘father of lies’ approaches Eve, he does not deny God. He cannot deny the essence of creation to which even his own existence bears witness.

The first temptation: the denial of Lord and Creator. is being realized in an era in which this aspect of the devil’s temptation has found the historical context that suits it. [Italics mine.]

In America, we are surrounded by pundits and politicians who believe man is the center of creation. Smugly, these men and women declare that prayer is a waste of time. We need human action, not passive begging to a God who many believe is irrelevant.

Consider for a moment, these prophetic words Pope John Paul ll delivered in a 1976 address to the US Bishops:

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine providence. It is a trial which the whole Church… must take up and face courageously…

We are experiencing the highest level of tension between the Word and the Anti-Word in human history.”

We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life as a total dedication to Christ…”

The duty of praise

Shortly after my conversion, a friend gave me a CD of Pope John Paul’s beautifully sung prayers and praise. You can listen to the entire fifty minutes here. The second song on the CD prompted me to memorize Psalm 92, among many others:

2It is good to give thanks to the LORD,

to sing praise to your name, Most High,^a

3To proclaim your love at daybreak,

your faithfulness in the night,

4With the ten-stringed harp,

with melody upon the lyre.

5For you make me jubilant, LORD, by your deeds;

at the works of your hands I shout for joy.

6How great are your works, LORD!^c

How profound your designs!

7A senseless person cannot know this;

a fool cannot comprehend.

8Though the wicked flourish like grass^d

and all sinners thrive,

They are destined for eternal destruction;

Young Wojtyła watched and listened to his father touch the coffin of his dead son. At the funeral of the Pope’s older brother, he murmured repeatedly,

“Thy will be done,

Thy will be done.”

Karol Wojtyła knew grief and loss: By the age of twelve, his mother and older brother were dead. In eight years, his father would die too.

Thomas Daniels’ lovely reflection on The Prayerful Intimacy of John Paul ll led me to the Pope’s Apostolic Letter on The New Millennium, Novo Millennio Inuente. The pope reflects on the previous Jubilee Year and all that has been accomplished. He begins with our duty to praise:

My thoughts turn first to the duty of praise. This is the point of departure for every genuine response of faith to the revelation of God in Christ. Christianity is grace, it is the wonder of a God who is not satisfied with creating the world and man, but puts himself on the same level as the creature he has made and, after speaking on various occasions and in different ways through his prophets, “in these last days … has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2)

Novo Millennial Inuente

The entire letter warrants time and attention, filled as it is with Pope John Paul the Great’s quintessential wisdom and clarity. His last paragraph presages this Jubilee Year: Let us go forward in hope! A new millennium is opening before the Church like a vast ocean upon which we shall venture, relying on the help of Christ. The Son of God, who became incarnate two thousand years ago out of love for humanity, is at work even today: we need discerning eyes to see this and, above all, a generous heart to become the instruments of his work.

He is waiting for you

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal…

Pope John Paul from Father Boniface Hicks

Pope Francis’s Jubilee Year of Hope is now in its final months. And begs our reflection on Pope Francis’ certainty about “the hope that never disappoints.”