From the Friars: John Paul the Great
October 22nd is the Feast Day of St. John Paul II, likely to be known to history as John Paul the Great. I remember him being elected Pope in October 1978, my senior year in high school. I thought it was cool that he was Polish and so young and energetic. Little did I realize the powerful impact he would have on my own life, not to mention the countless amazing achievements of his lifetime.
Picture of St. John Paul II, by Quirinale.it, Attribution, Link
Coming back to the Church in 1988 I was looking for answers, particularly about Catholic teaching on human sexuality. The idea that anything goes for consenting adults, found almost everywhere in our culture, has caused much pain and confusion. Finally, I discovered the discourses of St. John Paul, which are now known as the Theology of the Body. This term describes his defense and explanation of what St. Paul VI had written in his historic encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had helped draft that document which restated the Church’s teaching about the necessity to maintain both the unitive and procreative meanings of the marriage act.
Upon his election, St. John Paul was keenly aware that most Catholics were rejecting or ignoring this essential teaching. From 1979 through 1984 in his Wednesday audiences he showed how this truth is rooted in Scripture. And he shared profound philosophical and theological insights into the dignity of the human person. I was amazed at how his instruction echoed my personal experience. I began to understand what the word love means, and what it does not mean. It began to make sense how authentic Trinitarian love is expressed through the human body, male and female.
Just over a month after I was ordained in 1998, I had the honor of concelebrating Mass with Pope John Paul in St. Louis, along with hundreds of other priests and bishops. On April 2, 2005, I was praying in the chapel at Mt. St. Mary’s University in Maryland when the bells started ringing. I knew it meant that the great and holy man that had helped and inspired me and so many others had gone home to his Father’s House.
Thanks be to Jesus for John Paul the Great. Amen.
–Fr. Peter