Saint John Paul II
From a homily of Saint John Paul II, pope
(For the inauguration of his Pontificate, October 22, 1978: AAS 70 [1978], 945-947)
Be not afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ!
Peter came to Rome! What else but obedience to the inspiration received from the Lord could have guided him and brought him to this city, the heart of the Empire? Perhaps the fisherman of Galilee did not want to come here. Perhaps he would have preferred to stay there, on the shores of Lake of Genesareth, with his boat and his nets. Yet guided by the Lord, obedient to his inspiration, he came here! According to an ancient tradition, Peter tried to leave Rome during Nero’s persecution. However, the Lord intervened and came to meet him. Peter spoke to him and asked. “Quo vadis, Domine?”—“Where are you going, Lord?” And the Lord answered him at once: “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” Peter went back to Rome and stayed here until his crucifixion.
Our time calls us, urges us, obliges us, to gaze on the Lord and to immerse ourselves in humble and devout meditation on the mystery of the supreme power of Christ himself.
He who was born of the Virgin Mary, the carpenter’s Son (as he was thought to be), the Son of the living God (as confessed by Peter), came to make us all a kingdom of priests.
The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council has reminded us of the mystery of this power and of the fact that Christ’s mission — Priest, Prophet-Teacher, and King — continues in the Church. Everyone, the whole People of God, shares in this threefold mission. Perhaps in the past the tiara, that triple crown, was placed on the Pope’s head in order to signify by that symbol the Lord’s plan for his Church, namely that all the hierarchical order of Christ’s Church, all “sacred power” exercised in the Church, is nothing other than service, service with a single purpose: to ensure that the whole People of God shares in this threefold mission of Christ and always remains under the power of the Lord; a power that has its source not in the powers of this world, but instead in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection.
The power of the Lord, absolute yet at the same time sweet and gentle, responds to the whole depths of the human person, to his loftiest aspirations of intellect, will and heart. It does not speak the language of force, but expresses itself in charity and truth.
The new Successor of Peter in the See of Rome today raises a fervent, humble and trusting prayer: “Christ, make me become and remain the servant of your unique power, the servant of your sweet power, the servant of your power that knows no setting. Make me a servant: indeed, the servant of your servants.”
Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power. Help the Supreme Pontiff and all those who wish to serve Christ and with Christ’s power to serve the human person and the whole human race.
Be not afraid. Open, I say open wide the doors to Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Be not afraid. Christ knows “that which is in man”. He alone knows it.
So often today, man does not know that which is in 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 with trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of life eternal.
Totus Tuus Prayer
Immaculate Conception, Mary my Mother,
Live in me, Act in me,
Speak in me and through me,
Think your thoughts in my mind,
Love through my heart,
Give me your dispositions and feelings,
Teach, lead me and guide me to Jesus,
Correct, enlighten and expand my thoughts and behavior,
Possess my soul,
Take over my entire personality and life, replace it with Yourself,
Incline me to constant adoration,
Pray in me and through me,
Let me live in you and keep me in this union always. Amen.
St. John Paul II Novena
Most holy servant of God, Pope St. John Paul II, we pray today for the youth and for World Youth Day.
We ask you to grant us your blessing from heaven! God gave you the grace of His fatherly tenderness and the spirit of His love from which we can all learn. We humbly implore you to intercede for us:
[State your intentions]
Most holy St. John Paul II, you were a witness of Jesus Christ for the whole world. You lit the world on fire with your passion for Christ and the Church. Trusting in God’s infinite mercy and in the intercession of Mary, you have shown us the path to reach eternal communion with God. And we ask that you pray for us…
[State the provided intention for today]
St. John Paul II, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your great example of how to live the faith. Grant us, through your intercession, the grace to also happily glorify God in our lives.
Hail Mary… Glory be…
Daily Intentions:
Day 1: Pray for us, that those who are unhappy will be filled with great joy.
Day 2: Pray for us, that we can convey forgiveness to those who have done wrong.
Day 3: Pray for us, that we will be guided and protected as we walk the difficult paths of the world today.
Day 4: Pray for us, that we will have the grace to see the goodness in our experiences every day.
Day 5: Pray for us, that we may bear witness to your mercy.
Day 6: Pray for us, that we may share the faith to those in doubt.
Day 7: Pray for us, that we may give hope to those who are discouraged.
Day 8: Pray for us, that we may love those who feel indifferent.
Day 9: Pray for us, that the love you have sparked in us transforms hearts and renews the face of the earth.
Archbishop Karol Wojtyla 1982
“We are quite ready to take, or conquer, in terms of enjoyment, profit, gain and success – and even in the moral order. Then comes the question of giving, and at this point we hang back, because we are not prepared to give. The element which is so characteristic under other forms in the spiritual portrait of women is barely perceptible in men. . . . We have a tendency toward the Nicodemus type of religious attitude, toward the type of devotion which is characterized maybe only by superficial discretion but very often also by fear of what others might think. . . . This male Catholicism is not interior and deep enough; the male believer does not have a true interior life. . . . we men do not have a deep enough interior life.”
Excerpts from Love and Responsibility
“The person—especially a woman—may be disillusioned by the fact that over time a man’s affection turns out to be only, so to speak, a cover for desire or even for an explicit will to use. Both a woman and a man may be disillusioned by the fact that the values attributed to the beloved person turn out to be fiction. Because of the dissonance between the ideal and the reality, affective love is sometimes not only extinguished but even transformed into affective hatred.”
“Love is of its nature reciprocal: he who knows how to receive knows also how to give. We love the person complete with all his or her virtues and faults, and up to a point independently of those virtues and in spite of those faults. The strength of such a love emerges most clearly when the beloved person stumbles, when his or her weaknesses or even sins come into the open. One who truly loves does not then withdraw his love, but loves all the more, loves in full consciousness of the other's shortcomings and faults, and without in the least approving them.”
Excerpt from a message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace on January 1st 2002
“True peace therefore is the fruit of justice, that moral virtue and legal guarantee which ensures full respect for rights and responsibilities, and the just distribution of benefits and burdens. But because human justice is always fragile and imperfect, subject as it is to the limitations and egoism of individuals and groups, it must include and, as it were, be completed by the forgiveness which heals and rebuilds troubled human relations from their foundations. This is true in circumstances great and small, at the personal level or on a wider, even international scale. Forgiveness is in no way opposed to justice, as if to forgive meant to overlook the need to right the wrong done. It is rather the fullness of justice, leading to that tranquillity of order which is much more than a fragile and temporary cessation of hostilities, involving as it does the deepest healing of the wounds which fester in human hearts. Justice and forgiveness are both essential to such healing.”
Excerpt from a homily by Pope St. John Paul II on May 25th 1980
"We have the right, the duty and the joy to tell you that Pentecost is still happening. We can legitimately speak of the ‘lasting value’ of Pentecost. We know that fifty days after Easter, the Apostles, gathered together in the same Cenacle as had been used for the first Eucharist and from which they had gone out to meet the Risen One for the first time, discover in themselves the power of the Holy Spirit who descended upon them. …. Thus was born the Apostolic Church. But even today – and herein continuity lies – the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, and every Temple, every Oratory, every place where the disciples of Christ gather, is an extension of that original Cenacle."
A homily of Saint John Paul II, pope
(For the 14th World Youth Day, Palm Sunday, March 28 1999)
"He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8).
The celebration of Holy Week begins with the "Hosanna!" of Palm Sunday and culminates in the "Crucify him!" of Good Friday. But this is not a contradiction; rather it is the heart of the mystery the liturgy wants to proclaim: Jesus willingly gave himself up to his passion; he did not find himself crushed by superior forces (cf. Jn 10:18). It was he himself who, in discerning the Father's will, understood that his hour had come and he accepted it with the free obedience of the Son and with infinite love for mankind.
Jesus brought our sins to the Cross and our sins brought Jesus to the Cross: he was crushed for our iniquities (cf. Is 53:5). The prophet said in reply to David, who was seeking the one responsible for the deed Nathan had recounted to him: "You are the man!" (2 Sm 12:7). The Word of God gives us the same answer as we wonder what caused Jesus' death: "You are the man!". Indeed, Jesus' trial and passion are repeated in the world today and renewed by every person who abandons himself to sin and can only prolong the cry: "Not this man, but Barabbas! Crucify him!".
Looking at Jesus in his passion, we see humanity's sufferings as well as our personal histories reflected as in a mirror. Although there was no sin in Christ, he took upon himself what man could not endure: injustice, evil, sin, hatred, suffering and finally death. In Christ, the humiliated and suffering Son of Man, God loves everyone, forgives everyone and confers the ultimate meaning on human life.
We are here this morning to receive this message from the Father who loves us. We can ask ourselves: what does he want of us? He wants us to look at Jesus and be willing to follow him in his passion in order to share in his Resurrection. At this moment we recall Jesus' words to his disciples: "The cup that I drink, you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized" (Mk 10:39). "If any man would come after me, let him ... take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 16:24-25).
The "hosanna" and the "crucify him" thus become the way to measure how one conceives of life, faith and Christian witness: we must not be discouraged by defeat nor exalted by victory because, as with Christ, the only victory is fidelity to the mission received from the Father. "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name" (Phil 2:9).
The first part of today's celebration let us relive Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. On that fateful day, who realized that Jesus of Nazareth, the Teacher who spoke with authority (cf. Lk 4:32), was the Messiah, the son of David, the awaited and promised Saviour? It was the people, and among them the most enthusiastic and active were the young, who thus in a way became the Messiah's "heralds". They understood that it was the hour of God, the longed-for and blessed hour awaited by Israel for centuries, and, waving palm and olive branches, they proclaimed Jesus' triumph.
In continuity with the spirit of that event we have now been celebrating World Youth Day for 14 years, when young people, together with their Pastors, joyfully profess and proclaim their faith in Christ, question themselves about their deepest aspirations, experience ecclesial communion and confirm and renew their commitment to the urgent task of the new evangelization.
They seek the Lord in the heart of the paschal mystery. The mystery of the glorious Cross becomes for them the great gift and sign of a mature faith. With his Cross, the universal symbol of Love, Christ leads the world's young people in the great "assembly" of the kingdom of God, who transforms hearts and societies.
How can we not give thanks to the Lord for the World Youth Days, which began in 1985 precisely in St Peter's Square and which, following the "Holy Year Cross", have traveled the world like a long pilgrimage towards the new millennium? How can we not praise God, who reveals the secrets of his kingdom to the young (cf. Mt 11:25), for all the good fruits and Christian witness which this successful initiative has produced?
Today's World Youth Day is the last in this century and in this millennium before the great gathering of the Jubilee: it thus has special significance. May the contribution of all make it a powerful experience of faith and ecclesial communion.
The young people of Jerusalem shouted: "Hosanna to the Son of David!". Young people, my friends, do you too want to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, the Saviour, the Teacher, the Leader, the Friend of your life, as your peers did on that day so long ago? Remember: he alone knows deeply what is in every human being (cf. Jn 2:25); he alone teaches us to be open to the mystery and to call God our Father, "Abba"; he alone makes us capable of selfless love for our fellow human beings, accepted and recognized as "brothers" and "sisters".
Dear young people, go joyfully to meet Christ, who gladdens your youth. See him and meet him by clinging to his word and his mysterious presence in the Church and the sacraments. Live with him in fidelity to his Gospel: demanding, it is true, but at the same time the only source of hope and true happiness. Love him in the face of your brother who needs justice, help, friendship and love
On the eve of the third millennium, this is your hour. May the contemporary world open new paths before you and call you to be bearers of faith and joy, as expressed by the palm and olive branches you are holding today, symbols of a new springtime of grace, beauty, goodness and peace. The Lord Jesus is with you and is accompanying you!
Every year during Holy Week, the Church enters into the paschal mystery with trepidation, as she commemorates the Lord's Death and Resurrection.
It is precisely through the paschal mystery which gave her birth that she can proclaim to the world, in the words and deeds of her children: "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:11).
Yes! Jesus Christ is Lord! He is the Lord of time and history, the Redeemer and the Saviour of man. Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!
Amen.