Thirteen years ago this week, on Saturday, April 2, 2005, St. John Paul II passed away in his apartment above St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. To say he was a humble servant is true, but to say that he shared in the history of Poland, Europe and the world through his holy orders and papacy is to understate his role in enabling freedom for men of goodwill.
Born in southern Poland in 1920, St. John Paul II witnessed his mother pass away when he was 9 years old. Raised by his father and brother, he lived a devotion to “His Mother,” the Virgin Mary. In fact, “Totus Tuus” became his life’s motto. In consecrating himself totally to the mother of Jesus, he even acknowledged that while a man fired the gun that attempted to take his life in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981, it was the Virgin Mary that guided the bullet that missed his heart by just millimeters.
During World War II, a young Karol Wojtyla witnessed his Jewish friends get captured and taken away by the Nazi’s Gestapo. He also learned of the Katyn massacre, where 22,000 Polish military personnel were ruthlessly murdered by their Soviet occupiers.
He became a priest while attending seminary in the underground of Poland. When he became a priest, then bishop of Krakow, and then cardinal of Krakow, he witnessed the lies of the government that said that there was no God. In fact, in Krakow, the government built a city called “Nowa Huta” which meant, “the new steel mill,” to represent “the first communist city without God.”
When he led a peaceful protest to keep a wooden cross placed on the site, the Polish government swore to tear it down. Wives, mothers, sons and husbands did not allow the Polish government to tear down this wooden cross. Later, in 1969, Cardinal Wojtyla placed the cornerstone for a church to be built there. The events of this time would lead to the “new evangelization.”
Later, during the strikes of Poland in the late 1970s and early 1980s, “solidarity” became the name of the freedom movement for Poles and people seeking freedom across the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc.
We recall St. John Paul II also because of his profound impact on North Carolina, as well as the U.S., during his several visits to the United States. He visited cities such as Columbia, S.C.; Washington, D.C.; New York, and later, a World Youth Day in Denver, Colo. He spoke to Americans as our pope, but also as our papa, father to us all. He also gave us Bishop William G. Curlin, and then, Bishop Peter J. Jugis.
My personal recollection of St. John Paul II is through his weekly column in the Catholic News Herald, “The Pope Speaks.” As he aged, he spoke freely to the world in his weekly Wednesday audiences. He gave us nuggets of wisdom, such as “History is not a meaningless series of events but is man’s path to God.” He spoke of pain and suffering, his own, but also that of the world that he witnessed as a young man, as well as a young priest, bishop, cardinal and then pope.
My wife Mary Anne and I and our family had the privilege of witnessing St. John Paul II celebrate his last week of Easter services in April 2004. On April 2, 2005, we were in the North Carolina mountains when we were forced to evacuate the Blue Ridge Parkway because of blizzard conditions – at the same time when he passed away in Vatican City. That Saturday was the ninth day of the Novena to Divine Mercy. It was also a day when his personal secretary delivered Communion to St. John Paul II on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday.
There is too much in the life of St. John Paul II to attribute the miracles around him to coincidence. And yet, as he lived his life in trust, depending on the infinite mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we are asked to trust in Jesus as well. And as we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday on the Sunday following Easter, let us also pray as Jesus taught us through St. Faustina to pray the Novena to Divine Mercy. And as we pray, let us also share in the memory of St. John Paul II’s passing on the ninth day of the Divine Mercy Novena.
Jon Gauthier is a parishioner of St. Matthew Church in Charlotte and the author of “Embracing Goodness.”