This coming Wednesday, April 2, is the 20th anniversary of the death of Saint John Paul II. He died in the Vatican in 2005 on the eve of the Divine Mercy Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, at 9:37 pm. For those of us born before 1990, he was the person who brought the Vatican, the papacy, and the Church close to our hearts and minds. It was difficult to resist his charisma and strong faith – a quality necessary for a successor of St. Peter in very difficult times. He led the ship in the period of the final confrontation between Communism and Western democracies, the collapse of Communism, and the rise of ideas in the Western world that contradicted the teaching of the Church — human dignity and religious freedom. He was a prophet who continuously reminded the world about the intrinsic dignity of every human being from conception to natural death, warning about the culture of death and promoting the culture of life.
It was in the first homily of his papacy where John Paul II aptly captured the cultural despair of a post-Christian world and pointed to the antidote:
“So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life.”
One phrase from the Bible that he repeated at the inauguration of his papal ministry became iconic for his entire papacy: “Do not be afraid!” John Paul II reflected on that phrase in the book Crossing the Threshold of Hope and explained that it was the Holy Spirit who inspired him to say these words.
“When, on October 22, 1978, I said the words “Be not afraid!” in St. Peter’s Square, I could not fully know how far they would take me and the entire Church. Their meaning came more from the Holy Spirit, the Consoler promised by the Lord Jesus to His disciples, than from the man who spoke them.”
He then continued the reflection and explained why he would often return to this phrase during his many years as pope.
“The exhortation “Be not afraid!” should be interpreted as having a very broad meaning. In a certain sense it was an exhortation addressed to all people, an exhortation to conquer fear in the present world situation … Why should we have no fear? Because man has been redeemed by God. When pronouncing these words in St. Peter’s Square, I already knew that my first encyclical and my entire papacy would be tied to the truth of the Redemption. In the Redemption we find the most profound basis for the words “Be not afraid!”: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn 3:16).”
Saint John Paul II was born as Karol Wojtyla on May 16, 1920 in Wadowice in southern Poland. In 1938, he became a student but only for one year as Germany invaded Poland and occupied it. During the war, he worked in a quarry in order to escape deportation to slave labor in Germany and later joined a clandestine underground theological seminary for priests. Ordained in 1946, Fr. Wojytla was soon sent to Rome for further studies. He was ordained bishop in 1958 and became archbishop of Krakow six years later. In 1978, at the age of 58 he was elected the 264th successor of St. Peter. During his pontificate, Saint John Paul II made journeys to 129 countries, traveling more than 680,000 miles. He was beatified in 2011 and three years later was declared a saint in the Catholic Church. His liturgical feast day is celebrated on October 22. Saint John Paul II, pray for us!
Fr. Mark Jurzyk
