THE HEALING MESSAGE OF SALVIFICI DOLORIS

Transcription

1 READINGS FOR the 2016 WORKSHOP LOve UNLEASHED THROUGH SUFFERING: THE HEALING MESSAGE OF SALVIFICI DOLORIS AND ITS PRECEDENTS IN CATHOLIC TRADITION WITH DR. DAWN EDEN GOLDSTEIN "The Gospel of suffering is being written unceasingly, and it speaks unceasingly with the words of this strange paradox: the springs of divine power gush forth precisely in the midst of human weakness." -- Pope John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, no Reprinted by The Pope John Paul II Forum for the Church in the Modern World Thanks to the generosity of the Strake and Scanlan Foundation

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3 Readings for Love Unleashed through Suffering: The Healing Message of Salvifici Doloris and Its Precedents in Catholic Tradition June 13-17, 2016 Summer Workshop SESSION 1 Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, nos. 1-24; Lumen gentium, nos Karol Wojtyla, Sources of Renewal, SESSION 2 John Paul II, Open the Doors to the Redeemer (January 6, 1983), in The Pope Speaks 28 (Summer 1983), Jubilee Year of Redemption (December 23, 1982), in The Pope Speaks 28 (Summer 1983), SESSION 3 John Paul II, Homily at Brzezinka Concentration Camp (Auschwitz II), June 7, 1979; Homily at Canonization of St Faustina, Kowalska, St Peter s Square. Rome, April 30, 2000 SESSION 5 Jean-Pierre Torrell, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 2: Spiritual Master, and (chaps 4 and 7) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 21, a. 4, and I-II, q. 113, a. 9; St. Thomas Aquinas, Prologue to Book III of Commentary on the Sentences SESSION 6 Brief quotes on the human person from Gaudium et spes, John Paul II and Jacques Maritain SESSION 10 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them ( (General Audience of October 10, 1979) and (General Audience of November 14, 1979) SESSION 11 George Weigel, The End and the Beginning, Francis, Interview with Pope Francis by Fr. Anthony Spadaro SESSION 12 The Marian Thread, from Gift and Mystery. Session 12. 1

4 Love Unleashed through Suffering: The Healing Message of Salvifici Doloris and Its Precedents in Catholic Tradition June 13-17, 2016 Summer Workshop St. Mary s Seminary, Houston, TX/ University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX Description: On the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, 1984, Pope John Paul II released a document so important to him that he urged all the faithful of the world to reread and meditate upon it. He told World Youth Day participants that he wanted this work to be a guide for their lives. He even incorporated this document into two of his most influential encyclicals, Fides et ratio and Evangelium vitae. Protestant philosopher Alvin Plantinga called it surely one of the finest documents (outside the Bible) ever written on its topic. That much-vaunted work is not John Paul s Catechesis on Human Love, but its message is so closely wedded to the message of that catechesis that it could be called the theology of the body s missing piece. It is Salvifici doloris, John Paul s apostolic letter on what he called the Gospel of suffering, and its message is as needed today as it was three decades ago. This workshop will examine Salvifici doloris (1) in itself, (2) in relation to John Paul s life and magisterium, and (3) in relation to past and subsequent Catholic teaching on redemptive suffering. Required readings: Our primary text will be the Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering) henceforth abbreviated as SD (this and other assigned magisterial documents may be found online). Students should bring a copy of Salvifici doloris to each session of the workshop and should also bring a Catholic Bible (preferably NAB or RSV). N.B. The texts listed below that are labeled supplemental reading are not required. Familiarity with them will enhance the student s understanding of the lectures. * All of the workshop sessions from Monday through Thursday will be held on the first floor Room #119 of the Nold Academic Building at St. Mary s Seminary located at 9845 Memorial Dr., Houston, TX Daily Mass will be offered in the St. Mary s Seminary Chapel. Friday s Mass and closing reflections will take place on the University of St. Thomas campus located at 3800 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX Mass will be in the Chapel of St. Basil. Breakfast and closing reflections will take place in the Little Gallery. DAILY SCHEDULE Monday, June 13, 2016: 8:30 am 3:00 pm, Room 119, Nold Academic Building St. Mary s Seminary 8:30 am Light Breakfast (optional) 9:00-10:15 am Session 1: Status Quaestionis, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will examine magisterial teaching and Christian theological discussion on the problem of suffering during the quarter-century preceding Salvifici doloris, including John Paul II s prepapal reflections on the Second Vatican Council s doctrine concerning redemption. 10:15-10:30 am Break / further discussion Readings: Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, nos. 1-24; Lumen gentium, nos ; Karol Wojtyla, Sources of Renewal, Supplemental reading: Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum concilium 1

5 10:30-11:45 am Session 2: Biographical Background, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will explore the events of John Paul II s life that informed his understanding of suffering at the time of his writing Salvifici doloris. During this session, we will also look at John Paul II s stated goals for the Year of Redemption, during which he issued Salvifici doloris, and note how Salvifici doloris complemented his Catechesis on Human Love. 11:45-12:00 Further Discussion 12:00-1:30 pm Lunch Break Readings: John Paul II, Open the Doors to the Redeemer (January 6, 1983), in The Pope Speaks 28 (Summer 1983), , and Jubilee Year of Redemption (December 23, 1982), in The Pope Speaks 28 (Summer 1983), Supplemental readings: George Weigel, Witness to Hope, :10 pm Mass in the Chapel (optional) 1:30-2:45pm Session 3: Suffering and Poland, Dr. John Hittinger Reading: John Paul II, Homily at Brzezinka Concentration Camp (Auschwitz II), June 7, 1979; Homily at Canonization of St Faustina, Kowalska, St Peter s Square. Rome, April 30, Brief excerpts from Gift and Mystery. 2:45-3:00 pm Further Discussion Tuesday, June 14, 2016: 8:30 am 3:00 pm Room 119, Nold Academic Building St. Mary s Seminary 8:30 am Light Breakfast (optional) 9:00-10:15 am Session 4: Biblical Foundations, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will examine the Scripture verses that John Paul cites in Salvifici doloris and the traditions of biblical interpretation that he draws upon in the letter. Readings: Isaiah 52:13-15 and 53 (the Fourth Servant Song); Colossians 1:24-29; Galatians 2: :15-10:30 am Break / further discussion 10:30-11:45 am Session 5: Thomistic Foundations, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will look at certain teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas which are in the background of Salvifici doloris, particularly concerning redemption and beatitude. 11:45-12:00 Further Discussion 12:00-1:30 pm Lunch Break Readings: Jean-Pierre Torrell, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 2: Spiritual Master, and (chapters 4 and 7); St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 21, a. 4, and I-II, q. 113, a. 9; St. Thomas Aquinas, Prologue to Book III of Commentary on the Sentences (handout). 12:10 pm Mass in the Chapel (optional) 2

6 1:30-2:45 pm Session 6: On the dignity and destiny of the human person Readings: Brief quotes on the human person from Gaudium et spes, John Paul II and Jacques Maritain 2:45-3:00 pm Further Discussion Wednesday, June 15, 2016: 8:30 am 3:00 pm Room 119, Nold Academic, St. Mary s Seminary 8:30 am Light Breakfast (optional) 9:00-10:15 am Session 7: Salvifici doloris, Part 1 Suffering and Redemption, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will undertake a general analysis of what John Paul means by redemption in Salvifici doloris and how he seeks to bring this understanding to bear upon the problem of human suffering. We will also explore how John Paul develops concepts from St. Thomas Aquinas and his own Redemptor hominis to put forth his vision of how the suffering person, crucified with Christ, becomes a conduit of Christ s saving power. Readings: John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, nos :15-10:30 am Break/ further discussion 10:30-11:45 am Session 8: Salvifici doloris, Part 2 The Suffering Has the Nature of a Test : Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein 11:45-12:00 Further Discussion 12:00-1:30 pm Lunch Break We will analyze how John Paul II in Salvifici doloris portrays suffering as an occasion for metanoia unto conversion for both the suffering person and the good Samaritan who has mercy upon the sufferer. Readings: No required readings other than Salvifici doloris. Bring Gaudium et spes and Lumen gentium to class. Supplemental reading: John Paul II, Dives in misericordia 12:10 pm Mass in the Chapel (optional) 1:30-2:45 pm Session 9: Suffering, Sin and Mercy in John Paul II, Dr. Steven Meyer 2:45-3:00 pm Further Discussion 7:00pm 9:00pm How Divine Mercy Heals Our Memories Cullen Hall, University of St. Thomas by Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein Reception on campus of UST, Old Bookstore Crooker Center Thursday, June 16, 2016: 8:30 am 3:00 pm Room 119, Nold Academic Building St. Mary s Seminary 8:30 am Light Breakfast (optional) 3

7 9:00-10:15 am Session 10: Salvifici doloris, Part 3 Suffering and the Imago Dei: Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will examine how John Paul II in Salvifici doloris builds upon the reflections he made in his Catechesis on Human Love concerning how the human person attains to the fullness of the imago Dei. This will bring us to consider what Salvifici doloris has to say concerning the communio aspect of suffering. Specifically, we will explore the connection it makes between the suffering experienced within the Body of Christ and the ecclesial communion of that same Body that is effected by the Eucharist. Readings: John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them ( (General Audience of October 10, 1979) and (General Audience of November 14, 1979) Supplemental reading: John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia 10:15-10:30 am Break / further discussion 10:30-12:00 Session 11: His Last Encyclical, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein We will consider how John Paul lived the message of Salvifici doloris during his final illness (what George Weigel called his last encyclical ), and will examine how Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis develop the teachings of Salvifici doloris. 11:45-12:00 Further Discussion Readings: George Weigel, The End and the Beginning, ; Francis, Interview with Pope Francis by Fr. Anthony Spadaro Supplemental reading: Dawn Eden, Remembering God s Mercy: Redeem the Past and Free Yourself from Painful Memories; Benedict XVI, Spe salvi; 12:00-1:30 pm Lunch Break 12:10 pm Mass in the Chapel (optional) 1:30-2:45 pm Session 12: Suffering and Mary in John Paul II, Roland Millare, STL 2:45-3:00 pm Further Discussion Reading: The Marian Thread, from Gift and Mystery Friday, June 17, 2016: 8:30am -11:00am, Mass and Closing Reflections at the University of St. Thomas 8:30 am Mass at St Basil s Chapel, University of St Thomas 9:00 am Breakfast, Little Gallery, Yoakum Blvd 10:00 am Reflections from selected participants 10:45 am Concluding thoughts, Goldstein/Hittinger 10:50-11:00 am Certificates and evaluations 4

8 READINGS FOR SESSION 1

9 PASTORAL CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH IN THE MODERN WORLD GAUDIUM ET SPES PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS, POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 7, 1965 PREFACE 1. The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds. 2. Hence this Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity. For the council yearns to explain to everyone how it conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today. Therefore, the council focuses its attention on the world of men, the whole human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of which it lives; that world which is the theater of man's history, and the heir of his energies, his tragedies and his triumphs; that world which the Christian sees as created and sustained by its Maker's love, fallen indeed into the bondage of sin, yet emancipated now by Christ, Who was crucified and rose again to break the strangle hold of personified evil, so that the world might be fashioned anew according to God's design and reach its fulfillment. 3. Though mankind is stricken with wonder at its own discoveries and its power, it often raises anxious questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the universe, about the meaning of its individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity. Hence, giving witness and voice to the faith of the whole people of God gathered together by Christ, this council can provide no more eloquent proof of its solidarity with, as well as its respect and love for the entire human family with which it is bound up, than by engaging with it in conversation about these various problems. The council brings to mankind light kindled from the Gospel, and puts at its disposal those saving resources which the Church herself, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, receives from her Founder. For the human person deserves to be preserved; human society deserves to be renewed. Hence the focal point of our total presentation will be man himself, whole and entire, body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will. Therefore, this sacred synod, proclaiming the noble destiny of man and championing the Godlike seed which has been sown in him, offers to mankind the honest assistance of the Church in fostering that brotherhood of all men which corresponds to this destiny of theirs. Inspired by no earthly ambition, the Church seeks but a solitary goal: to carry forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served.(2)

10 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT THE SITUATION OF MEN IN THE MODERN WORLD 4. To carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics. Some of the main features of the modern world can be sketched as follows. Today, the human race is involved in a new stage of history. Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world. Triggered by the intelligence and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence we can already speak of a true cultural and social transformation, one which has repercussions on man's religious life as well. As happens in any crisis of growth, this transformation has brought serious difficulties in its wake. Thus while man extends his power in every direction, he does not always succeed in subjecting it to his own welfare. Striving to probe more profoundly into the deeper recesses of his own mind, he frequently appears more unsure of himself. Gradually and more precisely he lays bare the laws of society, only to be paralyzed by uncertainty about the direction to give it. Never has the human race enjoyed such an abundance of wealth, resources and economic power, and yet a huge proportion of the worlds citizens are still tormented by hunger and poverty, while countless numbers suffer from total illiteracy. Never before has man had so keen an understanding of freedom, yet at the same time new forms of social and psychological slavery make their appearance. Although the world of today has a very vivid awareness of its unity and of how one man depends on another in needful solidarity, it is most grievously torn into opposing camps by conflicting forces. For political, social, economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly, and with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes. True, there is a growing exchange of ideas, but the very words by which key concepts are expressed take on quite different meanings in diverse ideological systems. Finally, man painstakingly searches for a better world, without a corresponding spiritual advancement. Influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. As a result, buffeted between hope and anxiety and pressing one another with questions about the present course of events, they are burdened down with uneasiness. This same course of events leads men to look for answers; indeed, it forces them to do so. 5. Today's spiritual agitation and the changing conditions of life are part of a broader and deeper revolution. As a result of the latter, intellectual formation is ever increasingly based on the mathematical and natural sciences and on those dealing with man himself, while in the practical order the technology which stems from these sciences takes on mounting importance. This scientific spirit has a new kind of impact on the cultural sphere and on modes of thought. Technology is now transforming the face of the earth, and is already trying to master outer space. To a certain extent, the human intellect is also broadening its dominion over time: over the past by means of historical knowledge; over the future, by the art of projecting and by planning.

11 Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences not only bring men hope of improved self knowledge; in conjunction with technical methods, they are helping men exert direct influence on the life of social groups. At the same time, the human race is giving steadily increasing thought to forecasting and regulating its own population growth. History itself speeds along on so rapid a course that an individual person can scarcely keep abreast of it. The destiny of the human community has become all of a piece, where once the various groups of men had a kind of private history of their own. Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis. 6. By this very circumstance, the traditional local communities such as families, clans, tribes, villages, various groups and associations stemming from social contacts, experience more thorough changes every day. The industrial type of society is gradually being spread, leading some nations to economic affluence, and radically transforming ideas and social conditions established for centuries. Likewise, the cult and pursuit of city living has grown, either because of a multiplication of cities and their inhabitants, or by a transplantation of city life to rural settings. New and more efficient media of social communication are contributing to the knowledge of events; by setting off chain reactions they are giving the swiftest and widest possible circulation to styles of thought and feeling. It is also noteworthy how many men are being induced to migrate on various counts, and are thereby changing their manner of life. Thus a man's ties with his fellows are constantly being multiplied, and at the same time "socialization" brings further ties, without however always promoting appropriate personal development and truly personal relationships. This kind of evolution can be seen more clearly in those nations which already enjoy the conveniences of economic and technological progress, though it is also astir among peoples still striving for such progress and eager to secure for themselves the advantages of an industrialized and urbanized society. These peoples, especially those among them who are attached to older traditions, are simultaneously undergoing a movement toward more mature and personal exercise of liberty. 7. A change in attitudes and in human structures frequently calls accepted values into question, especially among young people, who have grown impatient on more than one occasion, and indeed become rebels in their distress. Aware of their own influence in the life of society, they want a part in it sooner. This frequently causes parents and educators to experience greater difficulties day by day in discharging their tasks. The institutions, laws and modes of thinking and feeling as handed down from previous generations do not always seem to be well adapted to the contemporary state of affairs; hence arises an upheaval in the manner and even the norms of behavior. Finally, these new conditions have their impact on religion. On the one hand a more critical ability to distinguish religion from a magical view of the world and from the superstitions which still circulate purifies it and exacts day by day a more personal and explicit adherence to faith. As a result many persons are achieving a more vivid sense of God. On the other hand, growing numbers of people are abandoning religion in practice. Unlike former days, the denial of God or of religion, or the abandonment of them, are

12 no longer unusual and individual occurrences. For today it is not rare for such things to be presented as requirements of scientific progress or of a certain new humanism. In numerous places these views are voiced not only in the teachings of philosophers, but on every side they influence literature, the arts, the interpretation of the humanities and of history and civil laws themselves. As a consequence, many people are shaken. 8. This development coming so rapidly and often in a disorderly fashion, combined with keener awareness itself of the inequalities in the world beget or intensify contradictions and imbalances. Within the individual person there develops rather frequently an imbalance between an intellect which is modern in practical matters and a theoretical system of thought which can neither master the sum total of its ideas, nor arrange them adequately into a synthesis. Likewise an imbalance arises between a concern for practicality and efficiency, and the demands of moral conscience; also very often between the conditions of collective existence and the requisites of personal thought, and even of contemplation. At length there develops an imbalance between specialized human activity and a comprehensive view of reality. As for the family, discord results from population, economic and social pressures, or from difficulties which arise between succeeding generations, or from new social relationships between men and women. Differences crop up too between races and between various kinds of social orders; between wealthy nations and those which are less influential or are needy; finally, between international institutions born of the popular desire for peace, and the ambition to propagate one's own ideology, as well as collective greeds existing in nations or other groups. What results is mutual distrust, enmities, conflicts and hardships. Of such is man at once the cause and the victim. 9. Meanwhile the conviction grows not only that humanity can and should increasingly consolidate its control over creation, but even more, that it devolves on humanity to establish a political, social and economic order which will growingly serve man and help individuals as well as groups to affirm and develop the dignity proper to them. As a result many persons are quite aggressively demanding those benefits of which with vivid awareness they judge themselves to be deprived either through injustice or unequal distribution. Nations on the road to progress, like those recently made independent, desire to participate in the goods of modern civilization, not only in the political field but also economically, and to play their part freely on the world scene. Still they continually fall behind while very often their economic and other dependence on wealthier nations advances more rapidly. People hounded by hunger call upon those better off. Where they have not yet won it, women claim for themselves an equity with men before the law and in fact. Laborers and farmers seek not only to provide for the necessities of life, but to develop the gifts of their personality by their labors and indeed to take part in regulating economic, social, political and cultural life. Now, for the first time in human history all people are convinced that the benefits of culture ought to be and actually can be extended to everyone. Still, beneath all these demands lies a deeper and more widespread longing: persons and societies thirst for a full and free life worthy of man; one in which they can subject to their own welfare all that the modern world can offer them so abundantly. In addition, nations try harder every day to bring about a kind of universal community.

13 Since all these things are so, the modern world shows itself at once powerful and weak, capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest; before it lies the path to freedom or to slavery, to progress or retreat, to brotherhood or hatred. Moreover, man is becoming aware that it is his responsibility to guide aright the forces which he has unleashed and which can enslave him or minister to him. That is why he is putting questions to himself. 10. The truth is that the imbalances under which the modern world labors are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on the one hand, as a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways; on the other he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life. Pulled by manifold attractions he is constantly forced to choose among them and renounce some. Indeed, as a weak and sinful being, he often does what he would not, and fails to do what he would.(1) Hence he suffers from internal divisions, and from these flow so many and such great discords in society. No doubt many whose lives are infected with a practical materialism are blinded against any sharp insight into this kind of dramatic situation; or else, weighed down by unhappiness they are prevented from giving the matter any thought. Thinking they have found serenity in an interpretation of reality everywhere proposed these days, many look forward to a genuine and total emancipation of humanity wrought solely by human effort; they are convinced that the future rule of man over the earth will satisfy every desire of his heart. Nor are there lacking men who despair of any meaning to life and praise the boldness of those who think that human existence is devoid of any inherent significance and strive to confer a total meaning on it by their own ingenuity alone. Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic questions or recognize them with a new sharpness: what is man? What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress? What purpose have these victories purchased at so high a cost? What can man offer to society, what can he expect from it? What follows this earthly life? The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all,(2) can through His Spirit offer man the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under the heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be saved.(3) She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, Who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.(4) Hence under the light of Christ, the image of the unseen God, the firstborn of every creature,(5) the council wishes to speak to all men in order to shed light on the mystery of man and to cooperate in finding the solution to the outstanding problems of our time. PART I THE CHURCH AND MAN'S CALLING 11. The People of God believes that it is led by the Lord's Spirit, Who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labors to decipher authentic signs of God's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on

14 everything, manifests God's design for man's total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human. This council, first of all, wishes to assess in this light those values which are most highly prized today and to relate them to their divine source. Insofar as they stem from endowments conferred by God on man, these values are exceedingly good. Yet they are often wrenched from their rightful function by the taint in man's heart, and hence stand in need of purification. What does the Church think of man? What needs to be recommended for the upbuilding of contemporary society? What is the ultimate significance of human activity throughout the world? People are waiting for an answer to these questions. From the answers it will be increasingly clear that the People of God and the human race in whose midst it lives render service to each other. Thus the mission of the Church will show its religious, and by that very fact, its supremely human character. CHAPTER I THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON 12. According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown. But what is man? About himself he has expressed, and continues to express, many divergent and even contradictory opinions. In these he often exalts himself as the absolute measure of all things or debases himself to the point of despair. The result is doubt and anxiety. The Church certainly understands these problems. Endowed with light from God, she can offer solutions to them, so that man's true situation can be portrayed and his defects explained, while at the same time his dignity and destiny are justly acknowledged. For Sacred Scripture teaches that man was created "to the image of God," is capable of knowing and loving his Creator, and was appointed by Him as master of all earthly creatures(1) that he might subdue them and use them to God's glory.(2) "What is man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet" (Ps. 8:5 7). But God did not create man as a solitary, for from the beginning "male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Their companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion. For by his innermost nature man is a social being, and unless he relates himself to others he can neither live nor develop his potential. Therefore, as we read elsewhere in Holy Scripture God saw "all that he had made, and it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). 13. Although he was made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of his history man abused his liberty, at the urging of the Evil One. Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God. Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, but their senseless minds were darkened and they served the creature rather than the Creator.(3) What divine revelation makes known to us agrees with experience. Examining his heart, man finds that he has inclinations toward evil too, and is engulfed by manifold ills which cannot come from his good Creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things.

15 Therefore man is split within himself. As a result, all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness. Indeed, man finds that by himself he is incapable of battling the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone feels as though he is bound by chains. But the Lord Himself came to free and strengthen man, renewing him inwardly and casting out that "prince of this world" (John 12:31) who held him in the bondage of sin.(4) For sin has diminished man, blocking his path to fulfillment. The call to grandeur and the depths of misery, both of which are a part of human experience, find their ultimate and simultaneous explanation in the light of this revelation. 14. Though made of body and soul, man is one. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world; thus they reach their crown through him, and through him raise their voice in free praise of the Creator.(6) For this reason man is not allowed to despise his bodily life, rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and honorable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, man experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But the very dignity of man postulates that man glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart. Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man. For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, Who probes the heart,(7) awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God. Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter. 15. Man judges rightly that by his intellect he surpasses the material universe, for he shares in the light of the divine mind. By relentlessly employing his talents through the ages he has indeed made progress in the practical sciences and in technology and the liberal arts. In our times he has won superlative victories, especially in his probing of the material world and in subjecting it to himself. Still he has always searched for more penetrating truths, and finds them. For his intelligence is not confined to observable data alone, but can with genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable, though in consequence of sin that certitude is partly obscured and weakened. The intellectual nature of the human person is perfected by wisdom and needs to be, for wisdom gently attracts the mind of man to a quest and a love for what is true and good. Steeped in wisdom. man passes through visible realities to those which are unseen. Our era needs such wisdom more than bygone ages if the discoveries made by man are to be further humanized. For the future of the world stands in peril unless wiser men are forthcoming. It should also be pointed out that many nations, poorer in economic goods, are quite rich in wisdom and can offer noteworthy advantages to others. It is, finally, through the gift of the Holy Spirit that man comes by faith to the contemplation and appreciation of the divine plan.(8) 16. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(9) Conscience is the most secret core

16 and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.(10) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.(11) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin. 17. Only in freedom can man direct himself toward goodness. Our contemporaries make much of this freedom and pursue it eagerly; and rightly to be sure. Often however they foster it perversely as a license for doing whatever pleases them, even if it is evil. For its part, authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. For God has willed that man remain "under the control of his own decisions,"(12) so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when, emancipating himself from all captivity to passion, he pursues his goal in a spontaneous choice of what is good, and procures for himself through effective and skilful action, apt helps to that end. Since man's freedom has been damaged by sin, only by the aid of God's grace can he bring such a relationship with God into full flower. Before the judgement seat of God each man must render an account of his own life, whether he has done good or evil.(13) 18. It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast. Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned(14) will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God. 19. The root reason for human dignity lies in man's call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God. For man would not exist were he

17 not created by Gods love and constantly preserved by it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator. Still, many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God, or have explicitly rejected it. Thus atheism must be accounted among the most serious problems of this age, and is deserving of closer examination. The word atheism is applied to phenomena which are quite distinct from one another. For while God is expressly denied by some, others believe that man can assert absolutely nothing about Him. Still others use such a method to scrutinize the question of God as to make it seem devoid of meaning. Many, unduly transgressing the limits of the positive sciences, contend that everything can be explained by this kind of scientific reasoning alone, or by contrast, they altogether disallow that there is any absolute truth. Some laud man so extravagantly that their faith in God lapses into a kind of anemia, though they seem more inclined to affirm man than to deny God. Again some form for themselves such a fallacious idea of God that when they repudiate this figment they are by no means rejecting the God of the Gospel. Some never get to the point of raising questions about God, since they seem to experience no religious stirrings nor do they see why they should trouble themselves about religion. Moreover, atheism results not rarely from a violent protest against the evil in this world, or from the absolute character with which certain human values are unduly invested, and which thereby already accords them the stature of God. Modern civilization itself often complicates the approach to God not for any essential reason but because it is so heavily engrossed in earthly affairs. Undeniably, those who willfully shut out God from their hearts and try to dodge religious questions are not following the dictates of their consciences, and hence are not free of blame; yet believers themselves frequently bear some responsibility for this situation. For, taken as a whole, atheism is not a spontaneous development but stems from a variety of causes, including a critical reaction against religious beliefs, and in some places against the Christian religion in particular. Hence believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism. To the extent that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion. 20. Modern atheism often takes on a systematic expression which, in addition to other causes, stretches the desires for human independence to such a point that it poses difficulties against any kind of dependence on God. Those who profess atheism of this sort maintain that it gives man freedom to be an end unto himself, the sole artisan and creator of his own history. They claim that this freedom cannot be reconciled with the affirmation of a Lord Who is author and purpose of all things, or at least that this freedom makes such an affirmation altogether superfluous. Favoring this doctrine can be the sense of power which modern technical progress generates in man. Not to be overlooked among the forms of modern atheism is that which anticipates the liberation of man especially through his economic and social emancipation. This form argues that by its nature religion thwarts this liberation by arousing man's hope for a deceptive future life, thereby diverting him from the constructing of the earthly city. Consequently when the proponents of this doctrine gain governmental power they vigorously fight against religion, and promote atheism by using, especially in the education of youth, those means of pressure which public power has at its disposal.

18 21. In her loyal devotion to God and men, the Church has already repudiated(16) and cannot cease repudiating, sorrowfully but as firmly as possible, those poisonous doctrines and actions which contradict reason and the common experience of humanity, and dethrone man from his native excellence. Still, she strives to detect in the atheistic mind the hidden causes for the denial of God; conscious of how weighty are the questions which atheism raises, and motivated by love for all men, she believes these questions ought to be examined seriously and more profoundly. The Church holds that the recognition of God is in no way hostile to man's dignity, since this dignity is rooted and perfected in God. For man was made an intelligent and free member of society by God Who created him, but even more important, he is called as a son to commune with God and share in His happiness. She further teaches that a hope related to the end of time does not diminish the importance of intervening duties but rather undergirds the acquittal of them with fresh incentives. By contrast, when a divine instruction and the hope of life eternal are wanting, man's dignity is most grievously lacerated, as current events often attest; riddles of life and death, of guilt and of grief go unsolved with the frequent result that men succumb to despair. Meanwhile every man remains to himself an unsolved puzzle, however obscurely he may perceive it. For on certain occasions no one can entirely escape the kind of self questioning mentioned earlier, especially when life's major events take place. To this questioning only God fully and most certainly provides an answer as He summons man to higher knowledge and humbler probing. The remedy which must be applied to atheism, however, is to be sought in a proper presentation of the Church's teaching as well as in the integral life of the Church and her members. For it is the function of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit Who renews and purifies her ceaselessly,(17) to make God the Father and His Incarnate Son present and in a sense visible. This result is achieved chiefly by the witness of a living and mature faith, namely, one trained to see difficulties clearly and to master them. Many martyrs have given luminous witness to this faith and continue to do so. This faith needs to prove its fruitfulness by penetrating the believer's entire life, including its worldly dimensions, and by activating him toward justice and love, especially regarding the needy. What does the most reveal God's presence, however, is the brotherly charity of the faithful who are united in spirit as they work together for the faith of the Gospel(18) and who prove themselves a sign of unity. While rejecting atheism, root and branch, the Church sincerely professes that all men, believers and unbelievers alike, ought to work for the rightful betterment of this world in which all alike live; such an ideal cannot be realized, however, apart from sincere and prudent dialogue. Hence the Church protests against the distinction which some state authorities make between believers and unbelievers, with prejudice to the fundamental rights of the human person. The Church calls for the active liberty of believers to build up in this world God's temple too. She courteously invites atheists to examine the Gospel of Christ with an open mind. Above all the Church knows that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart when she champions the dignity of the human vocation, restoring hope to those who have already despaired of anything higher than their present lot. Far from diminishing man, her message brings to his development light, life and freedom. Apart from this message nothing will avail to fill up the heart of man: "Thou hast made us for Thyself," O Lord, "and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee."(19) 22. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come,(20) namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final

19 Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown. He Who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15),(21) is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled,(22) by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice(23) and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.(24) As an innocent lamb He merited for us life by the free shedding of His own blood. In Him God reconciled us(25) to Himself and among ourselves; from bondage to the devil and sin He delivered us, so that each one of us can say with the Apostle: The Son of God "loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20). By suffering for us He not only provided us with an example for our imitation,(26) He blazed a trail, and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning. The Christian man, conformed to the likeness of that Son Who is the firstborn of many brothers,(27) received "the first fruits of the Spirit" (Rom. 8:23) by which he becomes capable of discharging the new law of love.(28) Through this Spirit, who is "the pledge of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14), the whole man is renewed from within, even to the achievement of "the redemption of the body" (Rom. 8:23): "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the death dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also bring to life your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom. 8:11).(29) Pressing upon the Christian to be sure, are the need and the duty to battle against evil through manifold tribulations and even to suffer death. But, linked with the paschal mystery and patterned on the dying Christ, he will hasten forward to resurrection in the strength which comes from hope.(30) All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. Such is the mystery of man, and it is a great one, as seen by believers in the light of Christian revelation. Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us(33) so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father(34) CHAPTER II THE COMMUNITY OF MANKIND 23. One of the salient features of the modern world is the growing interdependence of men one on the other, a development promoted chiefly by modern technical advances. Nevertheless brotherly dialogue among men does not reach its perfection on the level of technical progress, but on the deeper level of interpersonal relationships. These demand a mutual respect for the full spiritual dignity of the person. Christian revelation contributes greatly to the promotion of this communion between persons, and at the same time leads us to a deeper understanding of the laws of social life which the Creator has written into man's moral and spiritual nature.

20 Since rather recent documents of the Church's teaching authority have dealt at considerable length with Christian doctrine about human society,(1) this council is merely going to call to mind some of the more basic truths, treating their foundations under the light of revelation. Then it will dwell more at length on certain of their implications having special significance for our day. 24. God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who "from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God Himself. For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor: "If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself... Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law" (Rom. 13:9 10; cf. 1 John 4:20). To men growing daily more dependent on one another, and to a world becoming more unified every day, this truth proves to be of paramount importance. Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one... as we are one" (John 17:21 22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.(2)

21 Lumen Gentium CHAPTER VII THE ESCHATOLOGICAL NATURE OF THE PILGRIM CHURCH AND ITS UNION WITH THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN 48. The Church, to which we are all called in Christ Jesus, and in which by the grace of God we acquire holiness, will receive its perfection only in the glory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things (Acts 3:21). At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly reestablished in Christ (cf. Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20; 2 Pet. 3:10 13). Christ lifted up from the earth, has drawn all men to himself (cf. Jn. 12:32). Rising from the dead (cf. Rom. 6:9) he sent his life giving Spirit upon his disciples and through him set up his Body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation. Sitting at the right hand of the Father he is continually active in the world in order to lead men to the Church and, through it, join them more closely to himself; and, by nourishing them with his own Body and Blood, make them partakers of his glorious life. The promised and hoped for restoration, therefore, has already begun in Christ. It is carried forward in the sending of the Holy Spirit and through him continues in the Church in which, through our faith, we learn the meaning of our earthly life, while we bring to term, with hope of future good, the task allotted to us in the world by the Father, and so work out our salvation (cf. Phil. 2:12). Already the final age of the world is with us (cf. 1 Cor. 10:11) and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect. However, until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells (cf. 2 Pet. 3:13) the pilgrim Church, in its sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons of God (cf. Rom. 8: 19 22). So it is, united with Christ in the Church and marked with the Holy Spirit "who is the guarantee of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14) that we are truly called and indeed are children of God (cf. 1 Jn. 3:1) though we have not yet appeared with Christ in glory (cf. Col 3:4) in which we will be like to God, for we will see him as he is (cf. 1 Jn. 3:2). "While we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:6) and having the first fruits of the Spirit we groan inwardly (cf. Rom. 8:23) and we desire to be with Christ (cf. Phil. 1:23). That same charity urges us to live more for him who died for us and who rose again (cf. 2 Cor. 5:15). We make it our aim, then, to please the Lord in all things (cf. 2 Cor. 5:9) and we put on the armour of God that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil and resist in the evil day (cf. Eph. 6:11 13). Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed (cf. Heb. 9:27), we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed (cf. Mt. 25:31 46) and not, like the wicked and slothful servants (cf. Mt. 25:26), be ordered to depart into the eternal fire (cf. Mt. 25:41), into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth" (Mt. 22:13 and 25:30). Before we reign with Christ in glory we must all appear "before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body" (2 Cor. 5:10), and at the end of

22 the world "they will come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (Jn. 5:29; cf. Mt. 25:46). We reckon then that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18; cf. 2 Tim. 2:11 12), and strong in faith we look for "the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. 2:13) "who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body" (Phil. 3:21) and who will come "to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed" (2 Th. 1:10). 49. When the Lord will come in glory, and all his angels with him (cf. Mt. 25:31), death will be no more and all things will be subject to him (cf. 1 Cor. 15:26 27). But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating "in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is."[1] All of us, however, in varying degrees and in different ways share in the same charity towards God and our neighbour, and we all sing the one hymn of glory to our God. All, indeed, who are of Christ and who have his Spirit form one Church and in Christ cleave together (Eph. 4:16). so it is that the union of the wayfarers with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted, but on the contrary, according to the constant faith of the Church, this union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods. [2] Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness, add to the nobility of the worship that the Church offers to God here on earth, and in many ways help in a broader building up of the Church (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12 27).[3] Once received into their heavenly home and being present to the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8), through him and with him and in him they do not cease to intercede with the Father for us,[4] as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5), serving God in all things and completing in their flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church (cf. Col. 1:24).[5] So by their brotherly concern is our weakness greatly helped. 50. In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honoured with great respect the memory of the dead;[6] and, "because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins" (2 Mac. 12:46) she offers her suffrages for them. The Church has always believed that the apostles and Christ's martyrs, who gave the supreme witness of faith and charity by the shedding of their blood, are closely united with us in Christ; she has always venerated them, together with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy angels, with a special love,[7] and has asked piously for the help of their intercession. Soon there were added to these others who had chosen to imitate more closely the virginity and poverty of Christ,[8] and still others whom the outstanding practice of the Christian virtues[9] and the wonderful graces of God recommended to the pious devotion and imitation of the faithful.[10] To look on the life of those who have faithfully followed Christ is to be inspired with a new reason for seeking the city which is to come (cf. Heb. 13:14 and 11:10), while at the same time we are taught to know a most safe path by which, despite the vicissitudes of the world, and in keeping with the state of life and condition proper to each of us, we will be able to arrive at perfect union with Christ, that is, holiness. [11] God shows to men, in a vivid way, his presence and his face in the lives of those companions of ours

23 in the human condition who are more perfectly transformed into the image of Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). He speaks to us in them and offers us a sign of this kingdom,[12] to which we are powerfully attracted, so great a cloud of witnesses is there given (cf. Heb. 12:1) and such a witness to the truth of the Gospel. It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened (cf. Eph. 4:1 6). Exactly as Christian communion between men on their earthly pilgrimage brings us closer to Christ, so our community with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace and the life of the People of God itself.[13] It is most fitting, therefore, that we love those friends and co heirs of Jesus Christ who are also our brothers and outstanding benefactors, and that we give due thanks to God for them,[14] "humbly invoking them, and having recourse to their prayers, their aid and help in obtaining from God through his Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, our only Redeemer and Saviour, the benefits we need."[15] Every authentic witness of love, indeed, offered by us to those who are in heaven tends to and terminates in Christ, "the crown of all the saints,"[16] and through him in God who is wonderful in his saints and is glorified in them.[17] It is especially in the sacred liturgy that our union with the heavenly Church is best realized; in the liturgy, through the sacramental signs, the power of the Holy Spirit acts on us, and with community rejoicing we celebrate together the praise of the divine majesty,[18] when all those of every tribe and tongue and people and nation (cf. Apoc. 5:9) who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and gathered together into one Church glorify, in one common song of praise, the one and triune God. When, then, we celebrate the eucharistic sacrifice we are most closely united to the worship of the heavenly Church; when in the fellowship of communion we honour and remember the glorious Mary ever virgin, St Joseph, the holy apostles and martyrs and all the saints.[19] 51. This sacred council accepts loyally the venerable faith of our ancestors in the living communion which exists between us and our brothers who are in the glory of heaven or who are yet being purified after their death and it proposes again the decrees of the Second Council of Nicea,[20] of the Council of Florence,[21] and of the Council of Trent.[22] At the same time, in keeping with its pastoral preoccupations, this council urges all concerned to remove or correct any abuses, excesses or defects which may have crept in here or there, and so restore all things that Christ and God be more fully praised. Let us teach the faithful, therefore, that the authentic cult of the saints does not, consist so much in a multiplicity of external acts, but rather in a more intense practice of our love, whereby, for our own greater good and that of the Church, we seek from the saints "example in their way of life, fellowship in their communion, and the help of their intercession."[23] On the other hand, let the faithful be taught that our communion with these in heaven, provided that it is understood in the full light of faith, in no way diminishes the worship of adoration given to God the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit; on the contrary, it greatly enriches it.[24] For if we continue to love one another and to join in praising the Most Holy Trinity all of us who are sons of God and form one family in Christ (cf. Heb. 3:6) we will be faithful to the deepest vocation of the Church and will share in a foretaste of the liturgy of perfect glory.[25] At the hour when Christ will appear, when the glorious resurrection of the dead will occur, the glory of God will light up the heavenly

24 CHAPTER III Christ and the..consciousness of redemption f The enrichment of our faith to which Vatican II shows the way on the basis of awareness of the Church finds its pivotal point in Jesus Christor we should say way rather than pivot since we are concerned with ways of enriching our faith. Thus Christ is the way whereby we are to enrich this faith. Following the Council s teaching, therefore, we propose to analyse the consciousness of redemption which, in the structure of our faith, corresponds to Christ s person and sums up his life, death and resurrection. Redemption is the work of Christ, the Son of God made'man; it is the essence of the mission of the second Person of the Trinity whereby God entered visibly into human history and made it a history of salvation. The work of redemption is, as Christ himself said (cf. John 16:7), the explicit condition of the mission of the Holy Spirit, his descent on the day of Pentecost and his continual visitation of the souls of men and the Church. A1 this is recalled in the trinitarian texts of Vatican II that w< have already quoted. The Conciliar texts treat of redemption itself in a concisi manner, recalling merely what is the subject-matter of ou faith: LG 3 LG 2 Christ... by his obedience brought about ou redemption. The eternal Father... created the whole un verse, and chose to raise up men to share in h own divine life; and when they had fallen 66

25 Christ and the consciousness o f redemption Adam, he did not abandon them, but at ^11 times held out to them the means of salvation, bestowed in consideration of Christ, the Redeemer. The work of redemption is always closely linked with the plan and work of salvation and is in fact its basis, especially since Adam s fall. That basis is found in God himself, but is realized in human nature and history. LG 7 LG 5 In the human nature united to himsdlf, the son of God, by ovjsrcoming death through his own death and resurrection, redeeihed man and changed him into'a ilew creation (cf. Gal. 6 :ts; z Cor. 5:17). The wonderful works of God among the people of the Old Testament were but a prelude to the work of Christ our Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God. He achieved his task principally by the paschal mystery of his blessed passion, resurrection from the dead, and glorious ascension. The work of redemption is the work pf the Mediator: it is the concrete form of mediation between God and man, linked with the mission of Jesus Christ. AGD 3 Jesus Christ was sent into the world as the true Mediator between God and men. As Mediator, Christ is the redeemer of the world, that world which in the Christian vision has been created and is sustained by the love of its maker, which has been freed from the slavery of sin by Christ, who was crucified and rose a^ain in order to break the stranglehold of the evil one, so that it might be fashioned anew according to God s design and brought to its fulfilment (g s 2 ). This text has already been quoted in the chapter on the consciousness of creation; we repeat it here because from the viewpoint of Vatican II the 6 j

26 68 Sources of Renewal consciousness of creation is closely linked with the consciousness qf redemption. GS it is the same God who is at once saviour and creator, Lord of human history and of the history of salvation. It is significant that this same Constitution offers us a wider vision of the work of redemption, just as it did concerning the work of creation. A deeper analysis reveals, so to speak, the common origjn of both the dogmatic Constitution and its pastoral counterpart. The world, which is the object of the work of creation, is also that of redemption; but the redemption of the world was accomplished in the world as Gaudium et Spes describes it; the whole human family... the theatre of human history (gs 2). The world was redeemed by God made man, and it was redeemed in man. The redemption of the world is essentially the redemption of man. s c 5 God who yvills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (i Tim. 2:4)... when the fullness of time had come sent his Son, the Word made flesh, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart, to be a bodily and spiritual medicine: the Mediator between God and mat/. For his humanity united with the Person of the Word was the instrument of our salvation. The consciousness of redemption runs like a broad stream through the magisterium of Vatican II, and is addressed to all those-who seek from it an enrichment of their faith. We shall analyse this -consciousness in its two complementary aspects, as it is delineated in the two principal documents of Vatican II. The redemption of the world continues in the Church. However, in the light of the Conciliar texts we shall consider it first as a reality thatds constantly presented to the world

27 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 69 and to man in the world: and here,the Constitution Gaudium et Spes will be our chief-guide. Afterwards we shall consider in wh&t way the reality of redemption continues in the Church, and our chief guide will- then* be the Constitution Lumerp Gentium. In both aspects-the reality of redemption is closely, linked with Jesus Christ: the Council expresseslanew the faith of the whole Church in Christ, and on the basis of this profession it enriches our consciousness of redemption. I. R edem ption as a reality constantly directed tow ards man in the w orld It may seem surprising that we turn our attention first towards the world which appears to be outside the Church, taking as our guid*e the pastoral dogmatic Constitution Gaudium et Spes; but on reflection it will be seen that this document completes the Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church not only by being directed to what is 'outside but also because it reveals what the Church essentially is, and displays the dynamism of the Church s mystery with greater fullness. The redemptive work of Jesus Christ which determines the inmost nature of the Church is in fact the work of the redemption of the world. Without the Constitution Gaudium et Spes, which speaks of the Church in the modern world, we should lack that dimension of our faith in redemption and in the Church, and that orientation of its-enrichment. The pastoral Constitution not only teachs us in a new way the truth concerning the redemption of the world and of man in the world (as it likeayise, teaches the truth about creation), but also enables us to see this truth in the wide context of modern life. In a sense it 'actualizes the truth of redemption by bringing it close to the experience of modern man. In this the Council follows the example of St Paul, who likewise

28 JO Siources of Renewal t related the.truth *of redemption*'to the experience of men of his day, making use of his observation of their lives and also sometimes of introspection; and in that case the consciousness of-redemption* was, united with-the inner experience of the Apostle himself. The Conciliar document cannot go so far, since it belongs to a different, literary genre, but the direction in which the consciousness of redemption is formed is very similar. From this point of view we should re-read the full expository introduction to Gaudium et Spes: GS 4 At all times the Church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the time and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, she should be able to answer fhd ever recurring questions which men ask about the meaning of this present life and of the iife tb come, and how one is related to the other. We must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings, and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live. It is impossible to quote here the whole of that introduction, wfiiehis piore than a simple description of the situation of man in the world today, as the sub-title has it. It is both an analysis and-a, synthesis illustrating facts already known from other sources, as, commonplaces of present-day information and understanding of man and the world. These facts have been studied with the utmost thoroughness. As we also read:.1 GS 9 These claims are bur the sign of a deeper and more widespread aspiration. Man as an individual and as a member of'society craves a life that is full, autonomous, and worthy of his nature as a human being; he longs to harness for his own welfare the immense resources of the

29 Christ and the consciousness of redemption y i modern world. Among nations there is a growing movement to set up' a worldwide community. In the light of the foregoing factors there appears the dichotomy of a world that is at once powerful and weak, capable of doing what is noble and what is base, disposed to freedom and slavery, progress and decline, brotherhood and hatred. Man is growing conscious that the forces,he has unleashed are in his own hands and that it is up to him,to control them or be enslaved by them. Here lies the modern dilemma. The text quoted is only a kind of summary, and it is worth looking at earlier paragraphs of the document which preseht particular elements of the analysis more clearly/ We shall lib t do so here, but will follow the document as it treats of the profoundest questions concerning mankind: those perennial questions, which confirm the essential fcontinuity of man s condition in the world, despite the mutability of the external factors of his- existence. The essential point is the profundity of these questions, like a probe inserted into depths of' the reality of man and' man s existence in the world. It is vital to reach the fundamental depths to which Gaudium et Spes leads us and it can be stated that these depths are Comparatively easy to rgach by an ordinary exertion of any man s powers of GS ra The dichotomy affecting the modern world is, in fact, a symptom of the deeper dichotomy that is in man himself. He is the meeting point of many conflicting forces. In* his condition as a created being he is subject to a thousand shortcomings, but feels untrammelled in his inclinations and destined for a higher form of life. Torn by a welter of anxieties he is compelled to choose

30 72 Sources of Renewal between them and repudiate some among them. Worse still, feeble -and' sinful as- he is, he often does the very thing he hates and does not do what he wants. And so he feels- himself divided, and the result is a host of discords in social life. This is hot only a description of man s'condition in the modern world, and nor were these found in St Paul s letters, especialljf the Epistle of the Romans which is also mentioned here. The descriptive method is useful at the outset but is no longer sufficient in a further analysis; it may even give rise to a certain alienation, if by this one understands talking about essentially hunian phenomena without referring them to their cause which is man himself. Hence the necessity of a deeper analysis pf man as the cause of these phenomena. Gadium et Spes performs-this analysis twice:-first in the introduction, and'secpndly in the first chaptet of Part I. Here we shall have,to refei; to both, beving in mind that the analysis in the first chapter is more of-a systematic summary, while the introduction is more narrative and existential in its approach. Each analysis in its own way serves to present the person of Jesus Christ and to re-examine the mystery of redemption. The redemption of the jivorld by God in Jesus Christ corresponds, so to Speak, to the twpfpld human-reality in which man.s dignity and his vocation to 3II that.enhances that dignity is cut across by hum^o weakness and sin. Gs 12 But what is man? He has put forward, and -continues to put forward; maiiy views about himself, views that are divergent and even contradictory. Ofteiv he either sets himself up as the absolute measure-of. all things, or debases himself to the point of despair. Hence his doubt and his anguish. The Church is keenly sensitive to these difficulties. Enlightened by divine revela-.,tion she can offer a solution to them by which the true state of man may be outlined, his weakness

31 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 73 explained, in such a waj^ that at the same time his dignitj^-and his vocation may be perceived in their true light. At the centre bf this response on the Church S part is the mystery of redemption: the work of Jesus Christ that is continually being effected in the Church and, through the Church, in mankind aiid the world. The Council is. aware that many men, for various reasons, refuse to accept this response.. Fpr some the reason lies in practical materialism and the consumer-oriented mentality; for others it lies in extreme poverty. There are some whose hopes are set on a genuine and iotal emancipation of mankind through human effort alone _ai>d who look forward to some fixture earthly paradise where all the desires of their hearty will be fulfilled (g s 10). Finally there are those who see no meaning in human existence. It is clear ho^v different are the answers that man offer,tp other men, and it, is clear that some pf them.are no answers at all GS 21 Meanwhile, every man remains a question to himself, one that is dimly perceived, and left unanswered. For there are times, especially.in the major events of life, when no man, can altogether escape from such self-questioning. God a one, who calls man to deeper thought and to more humblq probing, can fully and with complete certainty supply an answer to this questioning. The-answer that God offers to men in Jesus Christ takes account of the profoundest questions to which men must continually revert. GS 10. What is man? What is the meaning of suffering,.evil, death, which have not been eliminated by all this progress? What is the purpose of these achievements, purchased at so

32 74 Sources o f Renewal high a price? What can man contribute to society? What can he expect from it? What happens after this earthly life is ended? Taking up once again these fundamental questions, the Council... proposes to speak to all pien in order to unfold the mystery that is man (gs io ) in jhe light of Chri,st. GS IO The Church believes that Christ, who died and was raised for the sake'of all, can show man the way and- strengthen him through the Spirit in order to be worthy of his destiny: nor is there any other name under heaven given among men by which they can be saved. The Church likewise believes'that the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of man s history is to be found in its Lord and Master. She also maintains that beneath all that changes there is much that is unchanging, much that has its ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. We have quoted this text in full so as not to divide the profession of faith in Christ that it contains. We shall return in due course to the second part of that profession, but here we must emphasize the consciousness of redemption that is clearly expressed in it. Redemption is the answer to man s perennial questioning, but not only in the Sense that it explains the mystery of man. Redemption at the same time offers man a source of enlightenment and strength to respond to his own supreme vocation. Christ, who died for all and rose from the dead, can give every man this light and strength by means of his Spirit - such is the Church s belief. Tlje work of redemption is identified with the paschal mystery of the Redeemer, followed not only by the descent of the Holy Spirit on the historic day of Pentecost but also by his descent throughout time. It is he who endows 'men directly with supernatural

33 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 75 light and strength, and his work is universal'in its scope. GS.,10...the Council... proposes to speak to all men in order t;o unfold the mystery that is man. The mystery of redemption, closely linked with Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection, is the central reality of our faith. Here Vatican il offers a great contribution to the enrichment of faith from the point of view.of consciousness of redemption. This central Christian reality is presented to man in such a way that, following the expression of Gaudium et Spes, we can perceive a* specific kind of anthropocentrism emerging through the Christocentri^m which the Constitution reflects so clearly. f * f GS zi In reality it is pnly in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear. For Adam, the first man, was a type-of him who was to dome, Christ the Lord. Chtist the' new Acfam, in the'very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself ancf brings to light his mdst high calling.,we seem here to have reached a key point in the Council s thought. The revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love in Jesus Christ reveals mai\ to man, and gives the ultimate answer to the question, What is man? This answer cannot be separated from the problem of mean s vocation; m^n confirms his identity by accepting that vocation and making it a reality., Through Jesus Christ and through the mystery ^of redemption there runs continuously towards man the intensive current of that faith of vocation in which he must recognize himself and his central position in God s eternal plan, the plaii of love that has opened itself Upon the world. The cdnsciousness of redemption relates to the Vvhole man, to his inward reality as much as his situation in the external world.

34 y6 Sources of Renewal GS 14 M411 is not,deceived when he regards himself as superior to bodily things and as more than just a speck of nature or a nameless unit in the city of man. For by his power to know himself in the depths of his being he rises above the whole universe of mere objeas. When he is drawn to think about his real self he turns to those deep recesses of his being where God who probes the heart awaits him, and where he himself decides iiis own destiny in the sight of God. So when he recognizes.in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being led astray by false imaginings that are due to merely physical or social causes. On the contrary, he grasps what is profoundly true in this matter. This orientation towards man s inner being enables us to discover, as is made clear in Gaudium et Spes, the fundamental elements of man s spiritual nature which constitute the dignity of the human person: knowledge, conscience and freedom. By way of this analysis man discovers his own vocation, which is not only confirmed by God through revelation but is also continually being renewed. The ferment of the Gospel has aroused and continues to arouse in the hearts of men an unquenchable thirst for human dignity (gs z 6). This strong statement in a sense sums up the whole reflection of faith on man s situation in the modern world. The consciousness of redemption is close to everything in which man s dignity is reflected in spite of his weakness. Thanks to redemption, man can and must strive towards his own dignity even along the tortuous and difficult paths that lead through his own heart. GS 13 For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from hi good creator. Often refusing to acknowledg

35 \ Christ and the consciousness of redemption *77» God. as his souree, man has also upset the relationship which.should link him to his last end; and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures. Man therefore is divided in himself. As a. result,, the whale life of men, both individual and social, shows itself to be* a struggle, and a dramatic one, between good and' evil, between light and darkness. Man finds that he is unable of himself to overcome the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone fefls as though bound by chains. But the Lord himself came to free and strengthen man, renewing him inwardly and casting out the prince of this world (Jn. 12:31), who held him in the bondage of sin. ^ For sin Brought man to a lower state, forcing him away from the completeness that is his to attain. Thus redemption, the work of Christ which gives a Christocentric dimension to the life of mankind in the Church, is, in this same dimensiorr, profoundly anthropocentric- in every man and in humanity as a whole it stands between good and evil, sin and salvation. Redemption is ffom sin which degrades man, and in this redemption - in its essence and effects we find the fundamental and inexhaustible means.by which man is restored to his proper value., The consciousness of this restoration of man s value by Christ is an integral element of faith, linked to the very mystery of the incarnation of God made man. GS 22 He who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the

36 j8 Sources of Renewal J> AGD 3 first sin; Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his incarnation, he, the son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted.with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin. Since he is God, all the fullness of the divine nature dwells in him bodily (Col. 2:9); as man he is the new Adam, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14), who has been constituted head of a restored humanity. So the Son of God entered the world by means of a true incarnation that he might make men sharers in the divine nature; though rich, he was made poor for our sake, that by his poverty we might become rich (z Cor. 8:9). The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, that is for all (cf. Mk. 10:45). The fathers of the Church constantly proclaim that what was not assumed by Christ was not healed. Now Christ took a complete human nature just as it is found in us poor unfortunates, but one that was without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15; 9:28). The incarnation of the Son of God was the beginning of redemption, which in due time fulfilled the essential purpose of the'incarnation. Accordingly the restoration of man s value, the elevation of the human nature of each one of us to supernatural.dignity is accomplished through participation in redemptiom

37 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 79 GS 22 Conformed to the image of the Son who is the firstborn of many brothers, the* Christian man receives the first fruits of the Spirit (Rom. 8:23) by which he is able to fulfil the new. law of love. By this Spirit, who is' the pledge of our inheritance (Eph. 1:14), the whole man is inwardly renewed, right up to the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23). If the Spirit of him whp jraised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he whp Raised Christ Jesus from the dead yvill give life to youii mo;i;tal bodies alsp through his Spirit who dwells in you (Rom. 8:11). } The pouring,forth of the Holy Spirit is a fruit of the Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ: a fruit which lasts*for ever, the everlasting fulfilment pf.the work of redemption. The Christian is ajvare of this, through faith, and this awareness determines his attitude towards the dramatic struggle between good and evil and the enigma of his human condition, which is most shrouded in ddubt by the mystery of death (GS 18). Thus we read: GS 22 The Christian is certainly bound both by need and by duty to struggle with evil through*'many afflictions and to suffer death; but, as one who has been made a partner in the paschal mystery, and as on e' who has been configured to the death of Christ, he will go forward, strengthened by hope, to the resurrection. The work of redemption is pniversal: it extends and fructifies ^more widely than men realize. All, of us are involved in tbe paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. GS 22 All this holds, true not for Christians only hut also for all men of good will in whose hearts

38 8o Sources,of R^enewal grace is active, invisibly- For since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility. of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.. The universality of redemption throws into still greater prominence the intrinsic anthropological content, the mystery of man which, through the mystery of Jesus Christ, constitutes one of the principle directions of the enrichment 6f faith that springs from the Council s teachings. GS 22. Such is the nature and the greatness of the mystery of man as illuminated for the faithful by the Christian revelation. It is therefore through Christ, and in Christ, that light is thrown on the riddle of suffering and death which, apart from his Gospel, overwhelms us. Christ has risen again, destroying death by his death, -and has given life abundantly to us so that, becoming sons in the Son, we may cry out in the Spirit: Abba, Father! Following step by step the magisterium of the Council which dwelt on this subject especially in Gaudium et Spes, we arrive at a profound consciousness of redemption as a reality presented to man. The sins of mankind, both personal and social, the whole mysterium iniquitatis and all the sinfulness and weakness of human nature constitute the object of redemption. It is, however, clear from the texts quoted that redemption is not confined to this multiform negative aspect but that it also emphasizes human values and human dignity. In Jesus Christ, God enters fiuman history to reveal himself to-jman and.at the same time to rdveal the inmost depths of human nature. In the light of the Council s teaching redemption is seen to be a real though mysterious thing, a soil in which values - above all human values - may grow and

39 Christ and the consciousness of redemption, 8i' flourish. We must likewise refer, this indirectly to other values, taking into account that they toaare.subjectively linked with man. GS I I... the Council intends firsf'of all to assess those values which are* most highly prized today and to relate them to their divine sdurce. For such values', in so far as they sfem frohi the natural talents given to man by God, are exceedingly good. Not seldom, however, owing to corruption of the human heart, they are distorted through lack of due order, so that they need to be set right. For this reason it remains each man s.duty to safeguard the liotion of the human person as a totality in which predominate values ol intellect, will, conscience and brotherhood, since these values were established by the Creator and wondrously restored and elevated by Christ (gs 6i ). Gaudium et Spes teaches in partifplar how the redemption of man by Christ brings out t^e value of the human community and of the multiform activities of man in the world. The Constitution is also heedful pf the values of marriage and family life, culture, socio-economic life, politics, and international relations, «^liich are in harmony with the work of Jesus Christ. A correct and thoroughgoing study of these chapters of the pastoral Constitution, which perhaps throw into greater prdminende'the ethical aspect of the problems of which It treats, also presupposes the whole vyorjd of values thafthe Christian perceives ih the light of faith'permeated by the mystery of redemption, or, as we may say, in the light of the paschal faith. i So as pot to multiply quotations, we shall conceii ;ratje only on passages from, Chapt^ III,of Pqrt I. GS 37 The whole pf man s history h ^ been the, story of dour cpmbat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of

40 I I 8i Sources'of Renewal history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the; battlefield man has to stru c k to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity... To the question, of how this unhappy situation can be overcome, Christians reply that all these human activities, which, are.,daily endangered by pride and inprdinate sejf-love, must be purified and perfected by the cross and resurrection of Christ. Redeemed by Christ and made a new creature by the Holy Spirit, man can, indeed he must, love the things of God s creation: it is from God that he has recdivecf them, and it is as flowing ^ from pod s hand that he looks upon them and reveres them. Man thanks his divine benefactor for air these things, *he uses them and enjoys them in a spirit of'poverty and freedom: thus he is bfought to a true possession of the world, as having nothing' yet possessing everything: All [things] ire yours; and you are Christ s ; and Christ is God s (i Cor. z: 22-3),GS 38 a'gd 8 AGD 7 Constituted Lord by his resurrection and giv,pn. all authority.in heaven apd on earth, Christ is now at work in the hearts of men by the power o. his Spirit t not only does he arouse in them a desire for tjhe, world to come but he quickens, purifies, and strengthens the generous aspirations of mankind to make life more humane and conquer the earth for this purpose.... all have need of Christ who is the model, master, liberator,* sayloilfand ^vef of life. And thus, finally, the intention of the creator in creating man in his c^wn image and likeness

41 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 83 will be truly realized, when all who possess huma,n nature, and have been regenerated in Christ through the Holy Spirit, gazing together on the glory of God, will be able to say Our Father. Many other passages could be quoted from the Council s magisterium', but in the light of those quoted here it is clear that the implementation of Vatican II must take the form of deepening awareness of redemption as a reality profoundly and universally open to mankind and to the world - profoundly, because it penetrates the most intimate secrets of the human soul, and universally, because it permeates every scale of values by which man is linked to the world. For this very reason the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ is the redemption of the world. And it is this aspect of faith that has been especially enriched by the Council s teaching. This enrichment might be described as paschal in view of the texts quoted and of many others, including the basic theme of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that through the liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, the work of our redemption is accomplished (sc 2). The paschal enrichment of faith consists in accepting the mystery of Christ as it was announced from the beginning, and in -so applying it to man in every dimension of his b,eing as to reveal his deepest truth and value. The paschal mystery^ as the mystery of the Cross, has full power to judge and convert human Jiearts (scrutatio cordium), and at the same time the Council shows how much room there is in that mystery foreman s authentic value and all the values connected with him. It is almost a reflectioji of the Resurrection, which always and in every.way shines through the Sacrifice thus instilling hope into the minds of Christians, not only in the eschatological sense but also in the temporal dimension in every one of its aspects., t

42 84 Sources of Renewal 2. R edem ption as a reality perm anently a t w ork in the Church! LG5 When Jesus, having died on the cross for men, rose again from the dead, he was seen to be constituted as Lord, the Christy and as Priest for ever (cf. Acts 2:36; Heb. 5:6; 7:17-21), and he poured out on his disciples the Spirit promised by the Father (cf. Acts 2:23^. Henceforward the Church, endowed witli the gifts of her founder and faithfully observing his precepts of charity, humility and self-denial, receives the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is, on earth, the seed and the beginning of that kingdom. While she slowly grows to maturity, the Church longs for the completed kingdom and, with all her strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with her king. Redemption as a reality Which is always open to man and to the world, and always offered to man as if for the first time - such is the redemption which abides in'the Church. It is the meeting-place of the two dimensions clearly described by Vatican II - the vertical dimension constantly extends into the horizontal and transforms it again into the vertical. The concept of the People of God has entered the mind of the Church in a dominant fashibn. A close analysis of the Council s teaching will show how this concept operates as regards the consciousness of redemption, that is to say how, against the background of that consciousness, the whole realism of faith (which is in accordance with Conciliar auto-determination of

43 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 8j, the Church) is manifested. Indeed That messianic people has as its head Christ, who Was delivered up for our sins and rose again for our justification -{Rbrn.. 4:25) (l g 9). Christ as the head of the Church influences the whole complex mechanism of it# body; by his redemption of us he penetrates the Church and unceasingly fills its mystic body with life. According to this ancient Pauline analogy we can understand how the reality of redemption abides permanently in the Church. The Son of God,. cornmunicating his Spirit, mystically constitutes as his body tjiose brothers of his who are called together from every nation.! LG 7 In that body the life of Christ is communicated to those who believe and who, through the sacramehts, are united in a hidden and fdal way to Christ in his passion and 'glorification. Through baptism we are formed in the likenfess bf Christ: For in bne Spirit we were all baptized into one body (i Cor. 12:13)...-The head of this body is Christ. He is the image of the invisible Gbd arid in him all things crime into being. He is before all creatures and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body ivhich is the Church:, He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might hold the primacy (cf. Col. 1:15-18). By the greatness of hi? power he rules heaven and earth, and with his all-surpassing perfection and activity he fills the whole body with the riches pf his glory (cf. Eph. 1:18-23). All the members must be formed in his likeness, until Christ be.formed in them, (cf. Gal. 4:19). For this reason we, who have been made like to him, who have died with him and risen with him, are taken up into the mysteries of his life.

44 86 Sources of Renewal. 1until we reign together with him (cf. Ptuh 3 = 5 2 Tim. z-.li; Eph. z:6; Col. z:iz, etc-). On earth,'still as.pilgritns in a strange land, tollowing in trial and in oppression the paths he trod, we are associated with hi% sufferings as the body with its head, suffering with him, that with him we m^y be glorified,(cf. Rom. 8:17). The work of redemption continues in "s, that is m the Church;x^hichcanalsobeexpressedbysayingthattheChurch is a permanent redemption, and that the form ^hich redemption took in Christ must almost flow back from us into Church. The Church is here understood not merely as an insttation but, far more widely aod deeply, m a myaical sense*. In this sense it w^s founded and is maintained in being by Christ and by the reality of rfedemption, which abides and instantly renews itself in the Church Thus f of redemption move is intimately ^nd directly bound up with the consciousness of the Church.,, This eonsciousness it expressed in the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which Vatican II again recalls and utrv.tt'vi if-p-ives new read: From him the whole body, supplied and built up Ld 7 by joints and ligaments, attains a growth that is of God (Col. Z-.I9). He continually provides in his body, that is, in the Church, for gifts of ministries through which, by his power, we 'serve each other unto salvation so that, carrying out the truth in love, we may through all things grow* untojiim who is our head (cf. Eph. 4:11 i, In order that we might be uncreasingly renewed in him (cf. Eph. 4:2.3), he has shared with us his Spirit who, being one and the same in head and members, gives life to, unifies and

45 Christ and the consciousness of redemption 8j moves the whole body. Consequently, his work could be compared by the Fathers to the function that the principle of life, the soul, fulfils in the human body. Carrying'out the truth in love - that is the aspect of human activity in which the redemption of Christ bears fruit. This fruit of redemption has in man an interior and spiritual dimensioii in which we must on each occasion discern the influence of the Holy Spirit as the continuation of that Descent which completed the paschal mysfery of the Redeemer. As we have already seen, the reality of redemption is constantly presented to man and, always manifests itself in what is good and valuable,,in conquering evil and sin. This widely ramified process, penetrating the minds and consciences of individuals, springs from the reality of redemption itself; at the same time it re-presents and completes it, striking root not only in individuals'but also in the community of the Mystical Body which is thus,built up and unceasingly developed. To define the way in which the reality of redemption abides in the Church we must firsjt touch on the invisible dimension suggested to us by the analogy with the Mystical Body. If the matter is thought through, wfe may say that the reality of redemption abides in the Church above all because its effects are realized in man and in the world.. There is a close linlc between the two aspects of redemption wjiich we a^e studying here, in accordance w;th the priqcip^l statements of Vatican II. The redemption of the world subsists continuously in the Church, above all thanks to the will of Christ the Redeemer. AGO 5... after he had fulfilled in himself the mysteries of our salvation and the renewal, of all things by his death and resurrection, the Lord, who had received all pow^r in heaven and on earth (cf. Mt. 28 ;i8)a fqunded his Church as the sacrament of salvatipn...

46 A Son of Freedom Poland Semper Fidelis M ay 1 8, Karol Tozef Woityla is bom in Wadowice and baptized on June 20. A u g u s t , i Red Army invasion of Europe is repelled at the Miracle on the Vistula. S e p t e m b e r 1 5, A p r il 1 3, i Karol Wojtyla, Lolek, begins elementary school. Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, Lolek s mother, dies. M ay i Lolek s first holy communion. S e p t e m b e r i Lolek enters secondary school. D e c e m b e r 5, i Edmund Wojtyla, Lolek s older brother, dies. F a l l , Lolek begins to perform in local theatrical productions. F eb r u a r y i Karol Wojtyla begins intense work with avant-garde theatrical director Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk. M ay 3, M ay 2 7, A u g u s t S p r in g J u n e Karol Wojtyla is confirmed. Wojtyla graduates from high school and is class valedictorian. Lolek and his father move to Krakow, where the younger Wojtyla begins an active undergraduate life at the Jagiellonian University. Wojtyla completes unpublished volume of poetry, Renaissance Psalter. Lolek successfully passes matriculation exams for further studies in Polish philology. J u l y Karol Wojtyla completes militaiy training with the Academic Legion.

47 A Son of Freedom 17 The Marne, Tannenberg, and Verdun; the Battle of Britain and Midway; Stalingrad and D-Day s Omaha Beach according to the conventional wisdom, these were the decisive battles of the twentieth century. Only Poles and professional historians remember the August 1920 Battle of the Vistula, or, as pious Poles insist, the Miracle on the Vistula. Yet much turned on this, including the destiny of a three-month-old infant named Karol JozefWojtyla, born in the small provincial city of Wadowice the previous May 18. In the summer of 1920, Polish history seemed set to repeat itself in a particularly ugly way. The Second Polish Republic, the first independent Polish state since 1795, was about to be strangled in its cradle as the Red Cavalry of General Semen Budennyi drove westward out of Ukraine, sweeping all before it. For Poles, it brought back memories of other invasions from the steppes and other preludes to national disaster. For Lenin, who wanted to probe Europe with the bayonet of the Red Army, ^the infant Polish Repul> lie was of no moral or historic consequence. It was simply the highway along which Trotsky s Red Army legions would march to Germany, triggering a revolutionary uprising across all of Europe. To make sure that any resistance would be summarily crushed, the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee, the puppet regime to be installed in the wake of the Red Army s inevitable victory, would be led by Feliks Dzerzhinskii, head of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police, the most feared man in Bolshevik Russia. By August 12, as one historian has put it, it was clear to most observers in Warsaw that the last desperate week of the resurrected Poland had arrived. The entire diplomatic corps fled, with one exception: Archbishop Achille Ratti, the Pope s representative. A Polish delegation left for Minsk, where they hoped to start negotiations for an armistice or a surrender with the Soviets. Dzerzhinskii was headed for Wyszkow, thirty miles from Warsaw, from which he expected to enter a fallen capital on August 17. But Marshal JozefPilsudski, who dominated the life of the Second Polish Republic from its inception in 1918 until his death in 1935, was not prepared to concede defeat. Pilsudski s intelligence operatives had detected a gap between the two corps of Trotsky s army. In a daring move, Pilsudski pulled some of Poland s best divisions from the lines on which they were engaged and secretly redeployed them to take advantage of the gap between the Soviet forces. On August 16, the Poles attacked, and by the night of the 17th, the Red Army, which had begun its own attack on Warsaw on the 14th, had been reduced to a rabble of fleeing refugees at a cost of fewer than 200 Polish casualties.^ Distracted by that year s calamitous flu epidemic and still reeling from the slaughters of the First World War, western Europe seemed unaware that, but for the Poles, the Red Army might just as easily have been camped along the English Channel as fleeing back into Great Russia. Lenin, though, understood that world history had just taken a decisive turn. In a rambling speech on September 20 to a closed meeting of communist leaders, he went into

48 18 Witness to H ope dialectical dithyrambs trying to explain why the Polish war... [was] a most important turning point not only in the politics of Soviet Russia but also in world politics. Germany, he claimed, was seething. And the English proletariat had raised itself to an entirely new revolutionary level. It was all there, ripe for the taking. But Pilsudski and his Poles had inflicted a gigan tic, unheard-of defeat on the cause of world revolution. At the end of his speech, Lenin swore that we will keep shifting from a defensive to an offensive strategy over and over again until we finish them off for good. But for now, the westward thrust of Bolshevism had been rebuffed. Among many other things, Pilsudski s Stunning victory meant that Karol Wojtyla would grow up a free man in a free Poland, a member of the first generation of Poles to be bom in freedom in 150 years. An experience he would never forget, it became part of the foundation on which he, too, would change the history of the twentieth century. T h e C r o s s r o a d s The nation into which Karol Wojtyla was born was once the greatest power in east central Europe. The Polish-Lithuanian dynastic union, formed by the marriage in 1386 of the Polish Queen Jadwiga to the Lithuanian Duke Wladyslaw Jagiello, created a mammoth state that, by defeating the Teutonic Knights, the preeminent military power of the age, at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, set the stage for 200 years of Poland s growth. A-decade after Columbus discovered the New World, Polish mle extended from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic in the north, and from the German borderlands on the west almost to the gates of Moscow in the east. In those days, France alone exceeded the Polish kingdom in population among the nations of Europe. Polish power and the world-famous Polish heavy cavalry, the winged Hussars, played a decisive role in world history. In 1683, Polish troops led by King Jan III Sobieski halted the Turkish advance into Europe at the epic Battle of Vienna. Sobieski presented Pope Innocent XI with the green banner of the Prophet, captured from the Turkish grand vizier. Along with it came the message Veni, vidi, Deus vicit [I came, I saw, God conquered] Poland s subsequent history was less glorious as historians typically measure national accomplishment. Memories of lost grandeur remained alive, though, in the form of an intractable conviction that Poland belonged at the European table. That conviction also had much to do with Poles sense of their location. A rhetorical convention. Stalinist in origin but widespread in the West, assigns Poland to eastern Europe. Poles never speak of themselves this way. Poland, for Poles, is in centraleurope, and any map of Europe will quickly confirm their claim. For Poles, though, this sense of being in the center of Europe is a matter of history and culture as well as of geography.

49 A Son of Freedom 19 To be sure, Poland is a Slavic nation, speaking a Slavic language. But the fact that Poles use the Latin, rather than the Cyrillic, alphabet in writing their language is more than an orthographic curiosity. It tells us how to locate the axis of Polish culture. Throughout its early national history, Poland was in constant contact with the civilization of western Europe. More than a century before thejagiellonians, during the reign of the Piast dynasty, Polish scholars were to be found in the West of the high Middle Ages. Martin the Pole, a historian, worked in Paris, and the Silesian philosopher Witello was a colleague of Thomas Aquinas.'^ Renaissance Polish humanists like Nicholas Copernicus, Jan Kocjanowski, and Jan Zamoyski all graduated from the University of Padua, then the leading school in Europe; in 1563, Zamoyski served Padua as its rector. Poland s constant interaction with the West was not limited to intellectuals. Krakow s Rynek downy, at 650 feet by 650 feet the largest market square on the continent, was a crossroads of European commerce and culture. There, you could buy almost anything, hear almost any European language, meet almost anyone. This was not living on the edges of civilization. It was life in the middle of things. Being in the center of Europe meant being in the center of Europe s controversies, of which the religious proved the most bloody in the sixteenth century. Poland was not immune to religious conflict, but it was also notable for a tradition of religious toleration that was remarkable for its time. Nowhere else in Europe during the wars of religion was there anything like the pledge made by Poland s leaders on January 28, 1573, that we who differ in matters of religion will keep the peace among ourselves, and neither shed blood on account of differences of Eaith, or kinds of church, nor punish one another by confiscation of goods, deprivation of honor, imprisonment, or exile---- ^ Life is never as simple as declarations, of course, and Norman Davies, a distinguished historian of Poland, argues that while toleration was the formal rule, the spirit of tolerance could be in short supply among individual Poles. The difference, Davies concludes, is that toleration did in fact prevail in Poland, the shortcomings of the people notwithstanding. Poland was indeed a land without bonfires. There were no campaigns of forced conversion; no religious wars; no autos-da-fe; no St. Bartholomew s Eve; no Thomas and Oliver Cromwell. At the height of its influence as a world power, there were limits to religious freedom in Poland that moderns would find intolerable, but these limitations... were trivial in comparison to the horrors which occurred in most other European countries. C a t h o l i c a n d c a t h o l i c None of Poland s intellectual, cultural, commercial, architectural, and political linkages to the West bears so much on the modern Polish drama as the

50 20 Witness to H ope strongest of the nation s ties to the civilization of Latin Europe: the Roman Catholic Church. Polish history is generally taken to begin with the baptism of the Piast prince Mieszko I in 966. Mieszko s choice for Latin Christitmity over Eastern Christianity, which had been formed in the orbit of Constantinople, decisively shaped Poland s history for more than a millennium. The motives for Mieszko s conversion were not unalloyed; accepting Latin-rite baptism helped him maintain room for maneuver against the ambitions of the Holy Roman Empire. Whatever the complex motivation involved, Mieszko s baptism as a Latin-rite Christian firmly anchored his emerging nation in the culture of the West. Over time, Poland would become perhaps the world s most intensely Catholic nation. By Mieszko s choice, a Slavic land and people would be oriented toward the Latin West. Thus the very intensity of the Catholicism of this land and people had an ecumenical or universal element built into it. These Roman Catholic Slavs were a bridge between Europe s two cultural halves; they could speak the language of two spiritual worlds. ^ Poland s Catholicity and its geographic location led to a certain catholicity of cultural temperament. The fabric of Polish Catholicism had a distinctive texture, and one of its brightest threads was a fidelity to Rome untinged by sycophancy. Yet the Polish experience of Rome differed over the centuries. From the Polish point of view, Rome could misunderstand, even betray, Polish aspirations as when the Church failed to support (and in one instance, sharply condemned) Polish patriots attempts to throw off the yoke of oppression after the final partition of Poland in 1795 had erased Poland, the state, from the map of Europe. But Rome could also stay and defend. During that third and final partition, the Pope s representative refused to leave his post as the vivisection of Poland was completed just as the apostolic nuncio. Archbishop Ratti, would do in 1920 in the face of the Red Army. The salt mine at Wieliczka is a metaphor for the special character of Polish Catholicism and its relationship to the national history. Salt has been dug out of the earth at this mine near Krakow since the Neolithic Period, about 3500 B.c. At the deepest level of the mine, 600 feet or so below the earth s surface, is the greatest of a series of chapels carved out of salt by pious miners the chapel of Blessed Kinga, wife to a thirteenth-century prince of Krakow, Boleslaw the Shameful. Six thousand cubic yards of salt were removed to clear the chapel. Five great salt chandeliers hang from the vault, and when their tapers are lit, the impression is of standing inside a diamond lit by the sun. The land above the mine at Wieliczka is fiat, a natural invasion route from east and west, across which marauders wrought havoc for centuries. Lodged deep within Polish soil, its ornaments carved from native material and radiating light where one expects darkness, is the steady, beating heart of a great spiritual culture, which often lacked wh^t the world recognizes as power.

51 A Son of Freedom 21 T h e N e i g h b o r h o o d Poland is not always appreciated this way. Indeed, the suspicion seems widespread that the Poles must, for some reason or other, deserve their bad luck.i^ Yet Poland s curse is neither in the stars nor in the Polish people. It s the neighborhood. For more than a thousand years, the Polish people and their state have inhabited an enormous flat plain bounded by large, aggressive, materially superior neighbors. Whether they were Teutonic Knights, vassals of the Holy Roman Empire, Prussian soldier-statesmen, or the armies of Hider s Thousand Year Reich, the Germans were always to the west, and almost always aggressive. German-Polish enmity followed and pe aked in World War II, when the Nazis sought to eradicate the Polish nation from history. The real, enduring passions of Polish antipathy are located eastward, however, toward Russia and Russians. For hundreds of years, Poles tended to think of Russians as savage exotics living beyond the pale of Christendom. An old Polishjoke (which one can still hear today) has it Aat, should Poland be invaded simultaneously by Germans and Russians, the Polish army should shoot the Germans first, on the ancient principle of business before pleasure.!^ This loathing was reciprocated by Russians, and not merely at the level of popular prejudice. In the seventeenth century, the monastery at Zagorsk, one of the spiritual centers of Russian Orthodoxy, featured a sign that read, Three Plagues ^Typhus, Tartars, Poles. '^ During the eighteenth-century partitions of the Polish state, these feelings of mutual hatred hardened, as the autocratic Russian authorities sought to turn Poles into Russians and the Poles contributed their share to the conspiratorial violence that wracked the czarist empire. Poland s historic problem of location was often eompounded by a certain incapacity for politics. The concept of freedom that entered Poland in the fifteenth century through Krakow s Jagiellonian University was deeply influenced by the philosophy of William of Ockham: freedom is the capacity to assert one s will against the willfulness of others. Over time, this notion made the Poles great freedom fighters, asserting their freedom against an enemy, but rather bad at living freedom There was, for example, the liberum veto of the Polish gentry class, by which a single nobleman could block the passage of any piece of legislation. Between 1652 and 1764, when a strong central government might have taken the steps necessary to defend Poland against its predatory neighbors, forty-eight out of fifty-five sessions of the Polish parliament, the Sejm, were dissolved because someone had proclaimed, Nie pozwalam, I disapprove. Yet Poland s Noble Democracy, or democracy by the rule of a large gentry class, avoided the worst excesses of royal absolutism, even at the cost of a kind of democratic anarchy. Its deficiencies were not the result of willfulness and selfishness alone. The gentry s moral claim to participation in Poland s governance was captured in the famous phrase, Nic o nos bez nas. Nothing about us without

52 22 Witness to H ope us. The phrase was fanciful when it gave moral sanction to the irresponsible use of the liberum veto in eighteenth-century Poland. It would have a different ring to it in 1980, when Nothing about us without us became one of the mottoes of Solidarnosc, the Solidarity trade union and political opposition. A D i f f e r e n t I d e a o f H i s t o r y Poland s location at the crossroads of Latin and Byzantine Europe, its geography, and its repeated experience of invasion, occupation, resistance, and resurrection gave rise to a distinctive Polish way of looking at history. The partitions of Poland in 1773, 1793, and 1795 were unprecedented in modern Europe. A historic state was murdered in cold blood... by mutilation, amputation, and, in the end total dismemberment. ^ Yet the Polish nation survived the destruction of the Polish state, because Poles came to believe that spiritual power was, over time, more efficacious in history than brute force. A nation deprived of its political autonomy could survive as a nation through its language, its literature, its music, its religion in a word, through its culture. Culture, not politics or economics, was the driving force of history. Thus history, viewed from the Vistula basin, looked rather different than it did from other vantage points. Poles may have been romantics, but few of them succumbed to the blood and iron Realpolitik that helped make a charnel house of twentieth-century Europe and paved the way for fascist and communist totalitarianism. Nor did Polish nationalism, for all its patriotic fervor, ever become narrowly xenophobic. Tadeusz Kosciuszko sought Polish independence from Russia under a banner that read For Your Freedom and Ours. The Poles who died at Monte Cassino in 1944 had similar universalist sentiments. As the epitaph in their cemetery in. Italy puts it: We Polish soldiers/for your freedom and ours/gave our bodies to the soil of Italy/Our souls to God/But our hearts to Poland. *^ Poles were also skeptical of the fondness for utopian revolutionary violence that became fashionable in Europe in Their political circumstances in which national survival was the crucial issue did not permit too much speculation, much less action, along utopian lines. Yet Poland s relative immunity to this particular modern virus also reflected the conviction that, over history s long haul, the spirit counted for more than what secular realists, including utopian revolutionaries, deemed the facts of the matter. What realists insisted was reality did not wholly determine what was real for example, the negation of Poland if you refused to believe their claims. It was a particularly Polish form of stubbornness with Christian cultural roots. And it served Poland well between 1795 and 1919, the time Poles refer to as their Babylonian Captivity or their Time on the Cross. i Without that stubbornness, Poland, the state, might never have reemerged on the political map of Europe. The Second Polish Republic, the Poland in which Karol Wojtyla grew up, was bom at the end of World War I amid immense difficulties. The new state

53 A Son of Freedom 23 had no internationally recognized boundaries. Seven different currencies circulated in the territory that would eventually setde down as Poland, and four legal systems were in play. Its industry had been destroyed; half the rolling stock, bridges, and other infrastructure of modern transportation had gone up in smoke during the war. By 1918, half of Poland s agricultural land was uncultivated and a third of the livestock had been stolen by the armies that had fought across the Vistula basin. Influenza was rampant, and starvation loomed until relief shipments arrived from the United States. Few Poles had any experience of operating a modern government.^ Poland s commitment to the priority of the human spirit in history was severely tested in the new country s first months of independence. Yet for ^dl these difficulties, Poland was a reality, and the Poles had changed the course of world history by repelling the Red Army s westward thrust. It was thus into a free Poland, beset by problems but hopeful about its independent future, that Karol JozefWojtyla was bom on May 18, H o m e Wadowice, Karol Wojtyla s bpyhood home, was an ancient town, founded in the mid-thirteenth century and located on the River Skawa in the fopthills of the Beskidy Mountains. The parish of Wadowice was established in In 1564, toward the end of the Jagiellonian dynasty, Wadowice was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland along with the rest of the Duchy of Oswi^cim. In 1819, Wadowice became the center of an administratiye district in Galicia and home to a regiment of Austro-Hungarian troops. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the town developed a reputation for literary and theatrical activity. With a pre-world War II population of about 10,000, Wadowice counted only a half-dozen automobiles. Horse-drawn carriages were still common, as were peasants in traditional dress. But this was no mral backwater. Its traditional cultural interests and the play of its history oriented Wadowice toward Krakow (Poland s cultural capital) and Vienna, rather than toward Warsaw. Like most other Poles in Galicia, the people of Wadowice harbored no burning antipathy toward the Habsburg Empire, but they were Polish patriots who welcomed the rebirth of an independentpoland after World War I. The elder generation in Wadowice may well have felt that at long last the sufferings of the past were over. Poland would no longer be an exile nation, wandering in the wilderness of history. The people of Wadowice were small businessmen, lawyers, tradesmen, farmers, and officials of the local provincial administration. They worked in the town s factories, producing biscuits and steel parts. A steam-powered sawmill, two brickyards, and a factory where fertilizer was made from animal bones treated with sulphuric acid completed the town s light industry.after Poland regained its independence, the Austrian barracks tyas taken over by the 12th Infantry Regiment of the new Polish army, and the regiment s senior

54 24 Witness to H ope officers became important figures in local society. The soberly dressed townspeople were in regular contact with the more colorfully clad farmers of the region. Some of the local poetry, memorized by Wadowice s schoolchildren, described the hard lives of those who were trying to wrest a living from the rocky soil of the region. The countryside, the people s Catholicism, and the world of culture met in the person of Wawro, a local peasant-philosophersculptor, whose popular primitives birds, sorrowful Christ-figures, wayside shrines ^were expressions of a simple soul who impressed the better-educated townspeople because he thought seriously about his art.^^ The contempt with which modern artists and (intellectuals often regard popular piety was not prominent in Wadowice. The Second Polish Republic was a heterogeneous affair in which ethnic Poles were sixty-five percent of the total population.^^ In Wadowice, this pluralism was primarily reflected in the town s large Jewish population, some 2,000 strong. According to EArol Wojtyla s boyhood friend, Jerzy Kluger, the Jews of Wadowice thought of themselves quite naturally as Poles. More than seventy years after they first met, Popejohn Paul II remembered Kluger s father, a lawyer and the leader of the Wadowice Jewish community, as a great Polish patriot. The Jews of Wadowice were originally German-speaking and had been largely inculturated into local society; they dressed and spoke like the other people of the town. Wadowice was not without its ethnic and religious tensions, but it was also a place where the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz s description of Jews as the elder brothers of Christians was taken seriouslyby many local Catholics. Karol Wojtyla would later write that he vividly [remembered] the Jews who gathered every Saturday at the synagogue behind our school. Both religious groups* Catholics and Jews, were united... by the awareness that they prayed to the same God. ^^ Wadowice s Jews, for their part, had recent and godd reason to regard themselves as being thoroughly Polish. Some had fought with Pilsudski s Polish Legion, in which Kluger s father had been an officer, and others were serving as officers in the new Polish army. The military garrison helped contribute to the townss atmosphere of tolerance. At the annual regimental ball, the colonel in command would always dance the first mazurka with Jerzy Kluger s mother.^ The local priests were also committed to religious toleration. Father Leonard Prochownik, who had served in Wadowice since 1915 and who officially became the town s pakor in 1929, is still remembered as someone whose promotion of interreligious tolerance was responsible for the town s relative lack of anti-semitism.^ Kluger s grandmother Huppert was friendly with the parish clergy, and the local policeman would shoo eavesdroppers away when the Jewish matron and the.polish pastor, both a little deaf, walked amid the birches and firs of the town square, carrying on a voluble conversation.^^ Physically and culturally, the focal point of Wadowice was St. Mary s Church (more formally, the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary), located at one end o f the long axis of the rectangular town square.

55 A Son of Freedom 25 The parish had been part of the town s life for more than 650 years. Every Sunday, both townspeople and those who lived in the countryside packed its Masses, dressed in their best clothes. Inside the main body of the oniondomed church, whose decoration was primarily baroque, worshipers found an elaborate high altar recessed in a chancel and six small altar-shnnes, each dedicated to a particular devotion. The baptistry chapel, in which thousands of children were christened over the centuries, displayed a copy of Poland s greatest national icon, the Black Madonna, which tradition held to have been painted by St. Luke on a table belonging to the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Dark wooden pews that could seat perhaps 200 congregants rested on the church s tiled floor. There was ample standing room, and it ivas used. The parish of Wadowice was fortunate in its clergy, men of piety and learning. Father Prochownik s assistant. Father Edward Zacher, was ordained in 1927 and was sent to Rome for graduate studies in theology. After returning to Poland in 1929 and spending two years at Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains, he was assigned to Wadowice as catechist or religion teacher in the two local high schools. Just outside the town, within easy walking distance, was a Carmelite monastery, home to one of the Church s most ngorous religious orders. Its most notable monk had been Rafal Kalinowski. Condemned to death but ultimately dispatched to eight years of Siberian exile for his role m the 1863 Polish Uprising against the czarist empire, Kalinowski entered the Discalced Carmelites at age forty after a period of self-imposed exile m P^is, and died in the monastery on the hill, as the people of Wadowice called it, in He would be canonized by John Paul II in About six miles farther along the road toward Krakow was one of the great pilgrimage sites in Poland, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, which would play a large role in Karol Wojtyla s spiritual life as long as he lived in Poland. A vast outdoor shrine, Kalwaria was originally built by the regional governor of Krakow, Mikolaj Zebrzydowski, who in 1600 commissioned a Church of the Holy Cross on the mountain of Zarek according to one tradition, after his wife had experienced a vision of Christ. When the new church was dedicated in October 1601, Zebrzydowski decided to build another chapel nearby, modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and invited the Franciscan fathers and brothers to look after the shrines. Having been to the Holy Land and sensing a resemblance between its topography and that of his property, the pious nobleman then decided to erect a whole series of chapels on his land, similar to those he had seen in Jerusalem commemorating various scenes from the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. By 1617, some twenty-four chapels, comprising an extended outdoor version of the traditional Lenten devotion known as the way of the cross, extended along many kilometers of footpaths through the rolling countryside. Zebrzydow ski s Calvary so o n b ecam e a place o f pilg rim ag e to r C atholics from all over P o land, especially d u rin g a g re a t o u td o o r passion play

56 2 From the Underground T he't hirdt^ich vs. th et ^^d o m o jt ruth September 1, November 6, February Lent Summer September F eb r u a r y 1 8, M ay 2 3, A u g u s t 2 2, O c t o b e r 1941 N o v e m b e r 1, Fall February 2 9, April August 6, January World War II begins as Germany invades Poland. 184Jagiellonian University professors are arrested and deported to Sachsenhausen; Karol Wojtyla begins clandestine studies and underground cultural resistance activities. Lolek meets Jan Tyranowski, who introduces him to Carmelite mysticism and the Living Rosary youth groups. Wojtyla writes Job: A Drama jrom the Old Testament. Wojtyla writes Jeremiah: A N ational Drama in Three Acts. Karol Wojtyla begins work as a quarryman at the Zakrzowek mine. Lolek s father, the elder Karol Wojtyla, dies. Wojtyla s parish priests are arrested by the Gestapo. Mieczyslaw Kodarczyk launches the Rhapsodic Theater. Karol Wojtyla begins work at Solvay chemical plant. Wojtyla plays King Boleslaw the Bold in the first clandestine production of the Rhapsodic Theater, Slowacki s K ing- Spirit. Karol Wojtyla is accepted by the Archdiocese of Krakow as a clandestine seminarian and begins underground studies in philosophy. Wojtyla is struck by a German truck and hospitalized. Jerzy Zachuta, Wojtyla s fellow-underground seminarian, is arrested by the Gestapo and shot. Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha begins an underground seminary in his residence. The German Occupation abandons Krakow and the Red Army arrives.

57 From the Underground 45 November 1,1946 Karol Wojtyla is ordained a priest by Cardinal Sapieha. November 15, Father Wojtyla leaves for graduate theological studies in Rome. Summer Wojtyla visits France, Belgium, and Holland. June Karol Wojtyla completes his first doctorate. igh atop the Wawel, the hill commanding Poland s ancient capital, sits the cathedral church of Krakow. To its north is the Old Town, its immense market square dominated by St. Mary s Church, from whose tower a trumpeter announces every hour of the day. The trumpet call, the solemn hajnat, breaks in mid-note, in memory of a thirteenth-century watchman killed by an arrow in the throat while warning the city of an impending Tartar invasion. To the south is the traditional Jewish quarter, Kazimierz. In the fall of 1939, its residents did not yet know the name Oskar Schindler. West of Kazimierz is Skalka, where St. Stanislaw, the first bishop of Krakow, was struck down in 1079 by the sword of King Boleslaw the Bold. Site of the coronation of Polish kings and burial place of many of the nation s political, religious, and cultural leaders, Wawel Cathedral has been the magnetic pole of Poland s emotional life for centuries. It had also witnessed a host of invasions and depredations since construction of the present structure began in Tartars and Swedes had laid waste the country; the Austrians had stripped the Old Town of its fortifications and walls; occupying powers of varying degrees of ferocity had displaced the kings and queens of Poland from the royal castle, atop the Polish Zion. Now, on September 1,1939, Wawel Cathedral was about to experience something beyond the imagining of those who had worshiped beneath its gothic vault for centuries. Karol Wojtyla left his apartment at Tyniecka, 10, in D^bniki early that morning and set out for the cathedral. It was the first Friday of the month and, according to Catholic custom and personal habit, he was going to make his confession to Father Kazimierz Figlewicz and serve Father Figlewicz s Mass. Entering the cathedral in the morning darkness, he walked past the tomb of King'MadyslawJagiello and the silver casket containing the remains of St. Stanislaw. Passing the white marble memorial to Blessed Queen Jadwiga, Jagiello s consort and partner in forming the great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he came to Ae altar in the north nave where Jadwiga s relics were venerated. Before the altar s great black crucifix, the young queen was often absorbed in prayer and from that cross, according to the traditions of our ancestors (as an inscription had it), Christ had spoken to Jadwiga about her duty. During that early morning Mass, other voices, far less gentle, made their presence known in Wawel Cathedral. First came the high-pitched wail of the warning sirens. They were followed by the chatter of anti-aircraft batteries

58 46 Witness to H ope and the explosions of bombs from Luftwaffe aircraft. The congregants scattered, but Father Figlewicz and his server concluded the Mass, if somewhat more rapidly than usual. Then Karol Wojtyia turned to the young priest who was his spiritual confidant and the keeper of his most personal secrets and said, I ve got to go, my father s at home alone. As he ran back across the Vistula, Luftwaffe Stukas began strafing the city s suburbs. F o r g e d in F ir e World War II, which Poles sometimes describe as the war they lost twice, was an unmitigated disaster for Poland. Six million of its citizens, out of a prewar population of 35 million, were killed in combat or murdered, a mortality rate of eighteen percent. The nation was physically decimated. Poland became the site of the greatest slaughters of the Holocaust. And, at the end, another totalitarian power seized control of Poland s political future. The experience of the war was decisive in forming the man who became Pope John Paul II. The war s horrors and an unexpected encounter during the Occupation with a lay mystic began to shape Karol Wojtyla s distinctively Carmelite spirituality, which focused on the cross as the center of the Christian life, and indeed the center of human history. It was during the Occupation, and in part because of the Occupation, that his vocational discernment began to bend inexorably toward the priesthood. The struggle for moral survival between September 1939 and January 1945 provided young Karol Wojtyia with heroic models for living out that priestly vocation. One of them, the Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, would sacrifice his life for a fellow prisoner in the starvation bunker at Auschwitz. Another was Adam Stefan Sapieha, the archbishop who had thought it a pity that the brightest young man in Wadowice was going to study philology instead of theology. The Occupation gave Karol Wojtyia his most profound experience of the world of manual labor. The experience would provide grist for his literary mill, even as it would shape the social doctrine of the Catholic Church throughout the world. And it was during the long, dark night of Occupation that Karol Wojtyia began to experiment with cultural activism, the defense of national cultural identity, as a means of political resistance and liberation a distinctive approach to the politics of revolution that would alter the course of the twentieth century, forty years later. The war was a trial by fire, a six-year period of unspeakable cruelty broken by acts of unimaginable heroism. As John Paul II wrote in 1995, Half a century later, individuals, families, and peoples still retain memories of those six terrible years; memories of fear, violence, extreme poverty, death; tragic experiences of painful separation, endured in the absence of all security and freedom; recurring traumas brought about by the incessant bloodshed. The

59 From t±ie Underground 47 experience of this manmade hell caused some to conclude that life was an absurdity. Karol Wojtyla came to a different conclusion and grew up very fast as a man, a thinker, and a disciple.* K i l l i n g F ie l d s Postwar communist historiography, too often adopted by Western commentators, was given to describing the Second Polish Republic as a buffoon state run by fascist colonels. The truth is more complex. Interwar Polish governments treated their political opponents with a heavy-handedness that would be unacceptable in developed democracies today. Yet opposition political parties flourished during the 1920s and 1930s and were in their strongest condition by the time war broke out in The only exception was the Polish Communist Party. But it was liquidated on orders from Moscow, not by Polish colonels. Government attempts to shackle the press usually failed; the judiciary maintained its independence and justice was generally evenhanded; critics of the government maintained their positions on university faculties.^ The regime, in a word, was not fascist or even semifascist. The cultural situation was more difficult. Marshal Pilsudski, a philo- Semite, subscribed to a theory of Polish nationalism in which there was ample room for cultural and religious diversity. Others insisted, often crudely, that a free Poland had to be ethnically Polish and Catholic. Among those holding this view were many members of the rural clergy. Their prejudices were undoubtedly confirmed when the Primate during the interwar years. Cardinal Augustyn Hlond, SDB, deployed a host of classic anti-semitic stereotypes in a 1936 pastoral letter and wrote that it is a fact that the Jews are fighting against the Catholic Church. * The attitude Wadowice s priests took toward their Jewish fellow townsmen demonstrates that such sentiments were not universally shared. But anti-semitism came increasingly to the foreground after Pilsudski s death. The substantial Ukrainian minority was also heavily pressured in interwar Poland, and political violence was close to the surface of public life.^ Reborn Poland had its cultural accomplishments as well as its political, ethnic, and religious tensions and discord. Illiteracy was dramatically reduced. The army, in which every young man had to serve, became a great technical training school.* Polish intellectual life, particularly in philosophy and mathematics, flourished. The arts experienced an explosion of creativity. Polish Catholic intellectuals became an independent cultural force by articulating a position that challenged both Polish messianism and Polish chauvinism a development that would have a considerable impact on the future. Perspective is important here. There was poverty and injustice in interwar Poland, but it cannot bear serious comparison to the wholesale starvation and mass executions that attended the birth and consolidation of the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union. Anti-Semitism was not unique to "Poland, as Amer-

60 48 Witness to H ope ican immigration quotas in the 1930s made clear and as Vichy France later demonstrated. Despite the Poles troubles in establishing a stable modern government, they never fell on each other in an orgy of fratricidal slaughter like their Spanish contemporaries. During the Second World War, Poland was the only occupied country in which the Nazis failed to establish even the bare outlines of a collaborationist regime. That seems to suggest that for all its difficulties, the Second Polish Republic was something its citizens thought worth defending. Poland s interwar diplomacy had its faults. Its seizure of land from Czechoslovakia while that country was being consumed by the Nazis was a sordid business that also suggested geopolitical woodenheadedness; a Polish- Czechoslovak alliance, pre-munich, might have set the history of the late 1930s on a different course. In the end, though, no diplomacy, however creative, could have saved Poland from its ancient curse geography. Adolf Hitler warned the German army high command in March 1939 that the time had come to resolve the Polish problem by military means. On April 1, he decreed that the invasion date would be September 1, and on April 28, he unilaterally abrogated the 1934 Polish-German nonaggression pact. The final decision to invade was taken on May 23, 1939, after the Polish government had refused to buckle under to German demands about incorporating the Free City of Danzig (in Polish, Gdansk) into the Third Reich, and about the position of German ethnics in Poland.' These demands were a smokescreen behind which lay a draconian strategic concept: Danzig is not by any means the main cause of the disagreement, Hitler conceded privately. The chief objective is to get new areas for Germany in the east and to control and safeguard new sources of foodstuffs. The question of Poland being spared therefore does not arise. " Within a month of Hitler s May 23 decision, the Wehrmacht high command had given the Fuhrer the operational plans for Case White, the invasion and conquest of Poland. Mobilization orders were dispatched to the Reich railroads on August 15, as Poles celebrated the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by pilgrimages to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, Czestochowa, and elsewhere throughout the country. A week later, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was in Moscow to conclude the nonaggression pact that sealed the Second Polish Republic s fate while charting its partition. Two ancient animosities now combined under totalitarian auspices. An intensely Catholic country was about to be dismembered by two radically secularist ideologies. Germany s ancient Drang Nach Osten, the drive to the East, met with Stalin s need for a cushion against what he knew was coming eventually from his putative German ally. Meanwhile, Poland s Western allies dithered. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave belated warnings to the German government that his appeasement at Munich the year before rendered ineffectual from the moment they were dispatched.

61 From the Underground 49 The Polish war plan, Plan Z, was not insane. Assuming German thrusts from Silesia and Slovakia and knowing that they could not defeat the Wehrmacht on their own, the Poles created a semicircle of seven tirmy groups along their western and southern frontiers. The idea was to resist the initial attack and then conduct a fighting retreat into Poland s interior, using the country s rivers as defensive barriers against the invaders. By this juncture, it vras assumed, Britain and France would have invaded Germany from the West, and Wehrmacht forces would have to be withdravm to meet that mortal threat. Then would come winter and wet weather; the heavily mechanized German forces would bog down; and the Polish army would go over to the offensive, catching the Germans in an east-west pincer between Poland and its Western allies. It soon became clear, though, that the large Polish army was unprepared for the rigors of blitzkrieg. The lethal combination of German armor and mechanized infantry and the Luftwaffe s virtually instantaneous control of Polish airspace made the planned fighting retreat impossible. Polemd s war plan, though brave, was uninformed by the new realities of warfare.' Moreover, the country s geography that vast, flat plain made it the ideal testing ground for blitzkrieg tactics. Then, of course, the Poles never anticipated the double stab, from west and east, that the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact made possible. In any event, the failure of Poland s British and French allies to honor their pledges by striking at Germany on the ground rendered any Polish strategy moot. The agreement with the British and French involved the Poles holding on for up to two weeks, which would have given the French time to throw 90 divisions, 2,500 tanks, and 1,400 planes across the virtually undefended Rhine. The Poles held on for twice that time, but, with the exception of a diversionary attack into the Wamdt Forest along the Franco-German frontier, the French army did nothing of strategic significance, while the RAF confined itself to dropping leaflets on German cities. '^ By leaving Poland to its fate, Great Britain and France lost the best chance they had to end Hitler s aggression without a world war. Despite that betrayal, the Poles contributed mightily to the Allied causp throughout the Second World War. Polish troops fought with the British in Norway and with the British and French in France in the spring of Poles flying with the RAF were responsible for twelve percent of German losses during the Battle of Britain that fall.' The Polish II Corps won the fourth and decisive battle for Monte Cassino in Italy. The Polish 1st Armored Division was instrumental in the Allied breakout from Normandy in August 1944 (in the Batde of the Falaise Pocket, Polish units ran into German formations they had fought in the Carpathian Mountains in 1939).' Polish intelligence, which had been cooperating with the Allies before the war broke out, acquired Germany s Enigma coding machine and, with what Churchill s private secretary called immense courage, delivered it to the British, for whom it was arguably the intelligence coup of the war, allowing the decryption of'german military

62 50 Witness to H ope orders.^ The Poles who fought with the Allies were often dismissively styled as emigres, particularly after the war. But they were, in truth, Poland tom away from its own soil and its own battlefields. And as such, John Paul II once said, they constituted the very marrow of the Poland that [was] fighting for the cause of independence: in keeping with the password ^For your freedom and ours. i The key date was September 17,1939. While the French huddled fearfully behind the Maginot Line, paralyzed by memories of the First World War, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Displaying that delicate moral sensibility for which Soviet diplomacy was always noted, the deputy foreign minister, Vladimir Potemkin, summoned Polish ambassador Waclaw Grzybowski to the Kremlin to inform him that the Polish-German War has revealed the internal bankmptcy of the Pohsh State. Thus the Soviet Union was obliged to intervene on behalf of the kindred Ukrainian and Byelomssian people who live on Polish territory. That Stalin had something in mind beyond ethnic peacekeeping was made immediately clear when advancing Soviet forces began shooting the senior Polish officers they captured, a grim preview of the Katyn Forest massacre of May 1940, in which the NKVD, predecessor to the KGB, murdered more than 10,000 Polish officers in cold blood, decapitating the future leadership of an independent Polish military.^ On the night of September 17-18, the Polish government fled by car across the Czeremosz River into Romania, accompanied by Cardinal Hlond, the Primate. The next day, the commander-in-chief of the Polish military. Marshal Edward Ridz-Smigly, followed suit, intending to prosecute the war from France. The result was that no general surrender order was ever issued to Polish troops, and no such surrender ever took place. Warsaw held out until September 27, conceding only when the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht s artillery had destroyed the city s water supply and food stocks were gone. A tenacious and fierce Polish underground resistance, linked to the legitimate Polish government that eventually re-formed itself in London, immediately commenced. On October 5, Hider reviewed German troops at a victory parade in Warsaw. The resistance had planted enough explosives on the reviewing platform to kill the Fuhrer and his entire entourage. The plot failed when a German order removed from the scene the man responsible for detonating the charge. The fourth partition of Poland had taken place. The Polish state was, once again, extinguished. Its people began a desperate struggle for survival. It was an objective their Nazi captors were determined to deny them. P o l a n d W i l l B e E r a s e d Western histories of the Second World War usually focus on the Battle of Britain, the North African and Italian campaigns, D-Day, and the Allied armies march to the Rhine and beyond as the story of World War II, but a persua-

63 From the Underground 51 sive case can be made that east central and eastern Europe were the pivots of the war in Europe.^More German casualties were inflicted on the eastern front than in the west, and without such depletions of manpower, the war in the west would certainly have unfolded differently. The centrality of Poland in the continental struggle and the Nazis own crazed racial theories led to a German occupation of Poland marked by unparalleled brutality. Rousseau s famous charge to the Poles If you cannot prevent your enemies from swallowing you whole, at least you must do what you can to prevent them from digesting you 2* ^was tested as never before. Poland s eastern lands were absorbed into the Soviet Union, while central and western Poland were divided into two spheres of German occupation. Parts of Poland, including Wadowice, were incorporated into the Third Reich. The remainder was styled the "General Gouvernement and placed under the control of Hans Frank, who took up residence in the royal palace on the Wawel, in Krakow. The rule of law, or anything remotely resembling the rule of law, ceased to exist, and a reign of terror ensued. Frank, a gangster who fancied himself an intellectual, entered Wawel Casde through a portal bearing the Latin inscription Si Deus Nobiscum Quis Contra Nos [If God is with us, who can be against us?]. From the residence of Poland s kings he dispatched instructions to his subordinates designed to demonstrate to the Poles that God, with them or not, was an irrelevancy: The Pole has no rights whatsoever. His only obligation is to obey what we tell him. He m ust be constandy rem inded that his duty is to obey. A major goal of our plan is to finish off as speedily as possible all troublem siing politicians, priests, and leaders who fall into our hands. I openly admit that some thousands of so<alled im portant Poles will have to pay with their lives, but you must not allow sympathy for individual cases to deter you in your duty, which is to ensure that the goals of National Socialism trium ph and that the Polish nation is never again able to offer resistance. Every vestige of Polish culture is to be eliminated. Those Poles who seem to have Nordic appearances will be taken to Germany to work in our factories. Children o f Nordic appearance will be taken from their parents and raised as German workers. The rest? They will work. They will eat litde. And in the end they will die out. There will never again be a Poland.^'* In Hans Frank s General Gouvernement, the only penalties for crimes or resistance were immediate death or sentence to a concentration camp and a crime could include failing to step off the sidewalk for a passing German patrol.2* The people were to survive on a 900-calorie-per-day diet. Secondary and higher education were shut down. Poles would only be taught to count to one hundred and to read enough to obey simple instructions. Participation in Polish cultural activities was a capital offense. Krakow s great Slowacki Theater was renamed the Staatstheater and reserved for German use. t Performance of the works of Chopin and Szymanowski was forbidden. The

64 52 Witness to H ope Germans systematically demolished libraries and other repositories of Poland s memory.26 in Krakow, the statue of the national poet, Adam Mickiewicz in the Old Town market square was destroyed, as was the monument to the pohsh-lithuanian defeat of the Teutonic Knights in Wit Stwosz s colossal wood-carved altarpiece in St. Mary s Church was disassembled and taken to Nuremberg.,, The Catholic Church became a particular target of Poland s Nazi masters who understood its role as the historic custodian of the national culture an identity. Decapitating Polish society necessarily involved decapitoting the Church. Before the war, the Church had prospered, owning more than a mi - lion acres of land, as well as rectories and convents, hospitals and orphanages, small industrial farms and handicraft industries. Twenty million Roman Catholics had worshiped in 5,100 parishes, served by 11,300 pnests and almost 17,000 nuns. Now, the Catholic Church in Poland would show that it knew how to suffer., 1 j 1, The Polish nation s view of the Church was indelibly marked by the sacrifices of its clergy during the war. In addition to innumerable laity, 3,646 Polish priests were imprisoned in concentration camps, of whom 2,647 were killed- and 1,117 nuns were imprisoned, of whom 238 were executed and 2 died from other causes. The Dachau concentration camp outeide Munich became the world s largest monastery, housing at one time or other 1,474 Polish priests and hundreds from other occupied countries Some 120 Polish priests were subjected to criminal medical expenments. In late 1939, the lea - ing priests of the diocese of Pelplin, the cathedral chapter, were executed en masse. Bishop Michal Kozal of Wloclawek died in Dachau m 1943, where Father Hilary Pawel Januszewski, the former Carmelite prior m Krakow, died in 1945 from typhus he contracted while voluntarily serving the camp sic Another Krakow priest, Piotr Dankowski, died in Auschwitz with a ^og tie to his shoulders on Good Friday, Alfons Maria Mazurek, pnor of the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Czerna, died on August 28, 1944, after being taken from the monastery and beaten to death. The Salesian Jozef Kowals was arrested at Karol Wojtyla s parish in D^bniki in May 1941 and taken to Auschwitz; beaten for refusing to grind rosary beads into the ground with is foot, he was drowned in feces on the night of July 3,1942.^ Shortly after arriving in Bydgoszcz at the beginning of the war the Germans began executing priests in reprisal for the Polish army s resistance, priest in occupied Poland could be shot for daring to lead a procession around his church without permission. Roadside shrines were wrecked. The German attempt to limit the use of Polish extended even to the confessional; one pnest in Choinice was so severely beaten after hearing confessions m the language of his penitent that he later died injail.^«hans Frank closed Wawel Cathedral, later allowing two Masses a week, celebrated by Father Figlewicz under the supervision of German guards.^^ By the end of the war, something on order of one-third of Poland s clergy tiad been murdered outright or had died m

65 From the Underground 53 concentration camps. And in many cases, it was the most enlightened, assertive priests who perished. Participation in Catholic youth groups was forbidden and the price of defiance was high, particularly when these groups were involved with the Polish resistance. Wanda Poltawska, a young Catholic resistance courier, spent several years as a medical guinea pig in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, where diseased baccilli were injected into her bone marrow. There, her resistance continued as she discovered the suicidal courage of people who could act as they chose today because they [knew] that by tomorrow they would be dead. *' Others in the resistance were more fortunate. Stefan Wyszyriski, a young priest noted for his involvement in labor activism, survived one Gestapo arrest and worked underground during the war years. His nom de guerre during his clandestine ministry in Warsaw was Sister Cecilia, as in Where is Sister Cecilia saying Mass today? *^ Polish life between 1939 and 1945 had a bizarre, even surreal quality. It was not a question of knowing whether you would be alive next year. Given the arbitrary terror meted out by the occupiers, the question was whether you would be alive tomorrow. The pressure was unrelenting; they could make as many mistakes as they liked; you could make only one. Griminals once thought that way; three months into the Occupation, virtually every Pole thought like that. The official ration was clearly inadequate for survival, so everyone was by necessity an outlaw, living on the black market. When news of the French collapse before the Wehrmacht reached Poland, suicides took place in Warsaw, Krakow, and the manor houses of the Polish intelligentsia. There would be no help. There would be no spring. A seemingly endless winter had set in. Poland was a nation under ice.** T h e W o r k e r At the outbreak of the war Karol Wojtyla and his father fled their apartment in D^bniki and, with thousands of other Poles, headed eastward, with a battered suitcase. The roads were filled with refugees, many of them Jews, pushing children in prams, the elderly being helped by their grandchildren. Peasants drove their livestock before them. People prayed, sang, cursed. There was no destination, only a desperate desire to avoid the onrushing Wehrmacht. The elder Wojtyla, weak and in poor health, could occasionally ride in a cart or a truck. Lolek and his father sometimes found themselves in a ditch, trying to take shelter from strafing Luftwaffe aircraft. Passing beyond Tarnow, they made it as far as the San River, some 120 miles from Krakow, before they learned that the Russians had invaded Poland from the east. Krakow, even under Occupation, was preferable to summary execution or deportation by the advancing Red Army. Krakow, even under the heel of Hans Frank, was home. They reversed course and walked back.*^ On their return, they saw the swastika flag flying from Wawel Castle s San-

66 54 Witness to Hope. crt Tn the weeks the Wojtylas had been in flight, the Germans domierz rampart. In the weeks m e j 7 N u r fu r Deutsche, hadimposed t h e m s e l v e s w i A m t o e f f i c ^ n ^ F o r G erm ans Only, m o n o p o lized m ea, ^ rip h n ik i L olek discovered only b u tter. L eaving th e -cataco m b - a t 4 th at, in & igid tem p eratu res, es ^ r e could seem m o re a distraction r a : a " S ^ ^ wrote to Mieczyslaw Kodarczyk, still in Wadowice: ^ c ITVip Krakow life ] lust think, think! It consists of stand- Vita Cracovtensis. [The KraKow j j o n-ar H a' A nd also of ing in line for bread, or (rare) [o of a b e l o n g i n g for w : d i T a ;C yaueveni gu tilm idnigh^ in his letter to S r o t t : SScT r=tr=^ showed itself in earnest in early Nov n nian University had opened its ta g C o r w ^ ls 'd u I y re^k ted for their fall courses. I. would be a short- " ' ' X r i f o r. p r o f e ^ r s ^ themselves, but 184 academics atten e, a,. f ^^s sealed. In what SS the entire group, which include g and shipped off to the Sachdeans or assistant deans, was summan y ar senhausen concentration camp, where jnallv perished The Nazi strategy of culmral decapitaton a a ^ e Germans looted the second oldest university. e no-laboratories Four days before Jagiellonian. m ocking ^ ^, Mieczyslaw Kotlarcryk about his the arrest of the professorj L hopes for an Athenian Pdand. made e7fect than Athens by the ^ boundless immensity of Ghrisnamty. h a d to b e p u rsu e d by University, in a d efian t act o f?'iii5s=h E=^

67 From the Underground 55 existence, 136 professors risked instant death by teaching 800 students (including Karol Wojtyla), often* at night in private homes. The atmosphere of the times was captured in a memoir hy Juliusz Kydryiiski, whose family risked arrest constandy by opening their apartment to clandestine scholarship: One of the meetings we had arranged was due to take place in an hour. The chairs were all arranged in the room for about thirty people. Then the Gestapo arrived. They were asking for somebody whom we probably knew and they saw all the chairs. My mother said we were preparing for a party. This seemed to satisfy them and they left. But that was a very close thing... If the Gestapo had arrived when there were people there \.. I would not be speaking today. Meanwhile, life had to be sustained at a basic physical level. Mieczyslaw Maliriski, another Debniki resident whom Karol Wojtyla would soon meet, described the normal conditions of life in Krakow under the Occupation in these grim terms: "... Police round-ups, deportation to camps and forced labor in Germany or some other place unknovm, beating up by SS men, death shooting in the street all these things were part of daily life.... Shots were frequently heard at night after curfew hours, when the police arrested people who were caught walking the streets without passes, and fired at any who did not stop when challenged. We were hungry for five years without a break, and each winter we were desperately cold. ^^ In the Wojtyla apartment, potatoes were the staple of the diet, dressed up with a bit of onion and margarine.^^ In addition to keeping fed, it was just as urgent for Karol Wojtyla to get an Arbeitskarte, a work card, that would permit him to stay in Krakow. Every able-bodied male between fourteen and sixty in the General Gouvernement had to have a job. The alternatives were to be shipped off to a concentration camp or to be summarily executed. For the first year of the war Lolek worked as a store messenger for a restaurant. It was relatively light work, and it suited Wojtyla s interest in continuing his education, his theatrical career, and the cultural resistance activities in which he was becoming involved. While others were dying of boredom, he wrote Kotiarczyk at the end of 1939, I have surrounded myself with books, dug in with Arts and Sciences. ^ He also intensified his study of French.^ At the same time, he read and reread Conrad, Slowacki, Mickiewicz, and Wyspiariski on his own, complemented by the Bible, especially the Hebrew Scriptures.^^ In the fall of 1940, as the Nazis began to interpret their work rules ever more stringently, Karol Wojtyla began almost four years as a manual laborer for the Solvay chemical company. For a year, he walked every day from the apartment in Debniki to and from the Solvay quarry at Zakrzowek a thirtyminute hike, but that was no small matter in sub-zero winter weather when he and his friend and fellow quarryman, Juliusz Kydrynski, had to make the trek with petroleum jelly smeared over their faces to keep their skin from freezing.

68 56 W itness to H ope The Zakrzowek quarry, a pit hundreds of feet deep, mined limestone, essential for the production of soda in the Solvay chemical plant located m another Krakow suburb, Borek Fal^cki. Throughout the harsh winter of , in which temperatures dipped to -22 Fahrenheit ( 30 Celsius), Lolek shoveled limestone into miniature railway cars at the bottom of the pit, occasionally working as a brakeman on the trains. In the spring he received a kind of promotion, as an assistant to Franciszek Labus, a veteran dynamiter. Labus took a liking to the young man whose previous expenence hadn t prepared him for the rigors of the quarry and offered Lolek some career advice^ Karol, you should be a priest, he told the novice blaster. You have a good voice and will sing well; then you ll be all set. Although Karol Wojtyla would later mine his experience of the quarry tor his literary, philosophical, and theological purposes, the fact remmns that *is was hard and dangerous work. Every day, each worker had to fill one of the. ^ ^11 tramcars with limestone. The new worker-students couldn t meet this quota, but the sympathetic quarry management could only reduce the qu< ^. The limestone still had to be broken up and shoveled, hour after hour. T e one break each day was for. breakfast. Food had to be brought from home and usually consisted of tough bread with jam and ersatz coffee, Kydrynski sometimes managed to get into a small hut m the pit w ere ere wl an iron stove to warm themselves and their coffee briefly. The rules said that they could take only one break for fifteen minutes per day; m practice, they managed to slip away every couple of hours or so to ty to get warm. The quarrymen, Kydrynski remembered, were good Poles, who didn t scorn the L d e L but rather sympathized with their being forced into this kind of backbreaking work in order to avoid deportation to Germany.^ The workday at Zakrzowek lasted from early in the morning until 3 p.m., after which Lolek, dressed in denims and clogs, walked home wth whatever he had managed to scrounge at the quarry and elsewhere for his feaer and himself: some coal, a few potatoes, perhaps some cabbages or peas. The young ^ quarryman s salary, meager as it was, was the family s only income since the Nazis had stopped the captain s pension. In October 1941, Karol Wojtyla was transferred to the Solvay chemical factory in Borek Falecki, a somewhat longer walk from D^bniki but a major improvement in his working conditions. At Borek Fal^cki, he worked m the plant s water.purification unit, often taking the night shift. It was easier to rea then, in between lugging buckets of lime hanging from a wooden yoke over his shoulders. The plant workers could also take advantage of a modest foo service, which fed them a half-liter of soup and a few ounces of bread during *^^'^Dejphe the reticence caused by the.omnipresent danger of the Gesmpo, the working conditions at Borek Fal^cki meant that Lolek could talk with his fellow workers. He sometimes debated religious issues with a man named Mankowski, an atheist and a member of the Polish Socialist Party. Fellow work-

69 From the Underground 57 ers also remember. Karol Wojtyla praying on his knees at the Borek Fal^cla p lan t u n X id of ridicule and seemingly able m tune out dte racto a ro u ^ him to concentrate on his conversation with God. On his w a y ^ he stopped at the parish in Podgorze run by the Redemptons to pray or to attend early morning Mass after completing the nigh Lift. From hl e, he recalled thirty years later, I gained the strength to as throueh the difficult times of the years of Occupauon. the long nights at Borek Fat.cki, Karol Wojtyla came to a new appreciation of the Marian piety that had cism In his early manhood, he later wrote, he thought he ought to distance himself a bit frol the kinds of devotion to Mary he had encountered as a boy in order to focus more on Christ. «While tending the water machinery at the Solvay plant he read the works of St Lours de - fort an eighteenth-century French preacher, who taught Wojtyla that true S m i r t f M a i y was always focused on Christ.- Mary was thedrst disciple indeed Mary s fmt ( Be it done unto me according to thy word [Lwfe 1.38]) and L unique role in the Incarnation of the Son of God had made discip ship possible for others. To be a disciple of Chnst was to be like Ma^, to dispose oneself utterly to the will of God. Marian piety was authenuc when i, led beyond Mary to a more intense relationship with the Holy Trinity itself. Marian piety was a special path mt y factory Introduced Karo. Wojtyia to a ld d ^ S n e v lr k T o w n before,the world of Ore iudusuiallah^^^^ rolx^nik as he was called in Polish. The Mods of f Labus the blaster, to the workmen at the water punficauon P i t understood that study was work and covered for h -» f continue his surreptitious reading uninterrupted were not the kind of p T he L d k ^ in Wadowice^r in the academic and literary world o Krakow Although there were some rough customers among em, struck the younglvojtyla most about these men was their innate dignity, wffic expressed hself in friendliness and a willingness to help others despite ei r h^l circumstances. Others would theorize about the tions of the urban proletariat. Thanks to four years of breamng rocks at X d L k and hauling buckets of lime at Borek Fal.cki, Karol Wojtyla knew L s e men, their living situations, their families, their interests, their human " " 'L m L S il tv rsp e c tiv e,th e y o u n g ro c k b re a ^ deeply about the meaffing of work itself. The Catholic piety with which he had grown up held that backbreaking work was one of the curses of ori^na, fne^f L enduring punishments for Adam and Eve s defiance of God His S p e ln c e of the quarry eventually led KaroIWojtyla to a differentvtew Work witii all its rigors and hardships, was a participation in God s. creativity, becau rotklluchld the very essence of the human being as the creature to whom

70 58 Witness to H ope God had given dominion over the earth. Fifteen years later, he tried to grasp this dimension of his experience in the pit at Zakrzowek poetica y. Listen, when cadences of knocking hammers dieir own I transfer into our inner life, to test the strength of each blow- Listen: electric current cuts through a nver of rock Then the thought grows in me day after day. The whole greamess of this work dwells inside a man. Inside man is, of course, a complicated place. Wojtyla s 1956 poem about his experience as a manual laborer is bunt around K b e w «n love and anger that was, in his mature view, the warp and woof of work as a specifically L m a n activity. Animals are busy; only people work. We work beca^ase lo v e -o u r families, our children, all those for whom we work and w hodependonourw ork.y etw orkinvolvesw restlm gw itht^unyiel^ngm a rial of the earth, and that wrestling can give birth to what Wojtyla styl... a fundamental anger which flows into people s breath like a river bent by the wind. ^ Anger is also a result of exploitation and the disloyalty of fellow workers. In the L r l d of work, love and anger are inseparable and human experience of work is to live in this unescapable tension, m this lever of anger and love. The tension is part of the inner structure of the wor tragically (as did a fellow quarryman whose accidental death le t a pro oun impression- on the young Wojtyla-) has transcended a generic robotnik, because in his uniquely personal way, he took with him th t o sm tture i the world/in «hich love will explode htgher tf a greater anger penetrates i t The built-in tensions otwork, Wojtyla sugges, i t o r e s o l t o in the transcendent dignity of the worker, who can never be reduced to a mere unit of production. A S p i r i t u a l M o u n t a i n e e r Mysticism is a dimension of religious experience at once magnetically atttactive and virtually impenetrable. Mystics write about their expenences, but at Z heir t o y g e n t o mysdcal expedence there is somethmg that a t o d party cannot sh al In the Carmelite tradition, for example, of mvstical knowledge is to know that there is nothing to be said about God. C n g t o c o L y e a r o f lif e in occupied tokow.toolw ojtylaw» duced to this world of intense religious contemplation as a direct result Nicivi fittark on Poland s Catholic clergy.

71 From the Underground 59 The parish of St. Stanislaw Kostka in D^bniki was led by the Salesian Fathers, a religious community founded by St. John Bosco. It was a dynamic parish in which the Salesians placed great emphasis on youth work. At the risk of their lives, the priests tried to continue this apostolate during the early years of the Occupation, conducting underground catechetical programs for elementary and high school students. The Germans systematically stripped the parish of its clergy, and on May 23, 1941, the Gestapo rounded up all but two of the remaining Salesians, shipping the others to concentration camps, where eleven died, including the pastor. Father Jan Swierc. As the Nazi pressure on St. Stanislaw Kostka s youth work increased, the Salesians turned to laymen to lead what had now become a clandestine ministry. The most successful of these lay leaders was a man named Jan Tyranowski, whose eonfessor once described him as a spiritual Alpinist. Bom on Febmary 9, 1901, Jan Tyranowski completed elementary school and sufficient years of business school to begin working as an accountant. His nervous disposition did not lend itself to that trade so, like his father and grandfather before him, Tyranowski learned tailoring and supported himself in the family business. Of medium height, with a full head of wavy hair, he sported a bmsh mustache and was always' properly, even elegantly, turned out. A shy personality with a somewhat delicate constitution, he might have lived a conventionally reclusive life. Then, in 1935, the already devout Tyranowski heard a sermon at St. Stanislaw Kostka in which one of the Salesians said, It s not difficult to be a saint. That simple phrase stuck in his mind, and the tailor of Debniki began to regularize his spiritual life in a systematic fashion. He also made a vow of celibacy, despite the interest in marriage which at least one woman in the parish had expressed to him. By the time of the Occupation, he was living a daily schedule of prayer and meditation more strict than that observed by many religious orders. A methodical man, Tyranowski wrote out the framework for his meditations in a set of notebooks he kept in a fine, almost calligraphic hand. But he was not dedicated to order and method in prayer as ends in themselves. For Jan Tyranowski, the goal of contemplative prayer was a release from thoughts and images, a certain freedom to simply be in God s presence. Karol Wojtyla met Jan Tyranowski in 1940, perhaps in February, and probably at one of the weekly Saturday meetings of young people at the parish. Tyranowski, a largely self-taught man who had read broadly in Catholic spirituality and whose modest flat on Rozana Street contained an impressive library of spiritual classics in several languages, quickly became one of the lay leaders of these discussions. To the young men of D^bniki, Tyranowski could seem rather formal at first, speaking somewhat like a walking catechism text. Yet the gentle tailor-mystic, who had made a considerable study of psychology on his own, somehow managed to communicate to these young men that the points of doctrine they were discussing were not abstractions for him, but the objects of his daily experience. It was a powerful, almost irresistible, quality. After

72 60 Witness to H ope the May 1941 Gestapo raid, the remaining Salesian parish priest at St. Stanislaw Kostka asked Tyranowski to begin forming a group of young men who could continue the parish s youth ministry in the absence of the clergy. Thus was born the Living Rosary, with Karol Wojtyla as one of the first leaders. The Living Rosary as created byjan Tyranowski consisted of groups of fifteen young men, each of which was led by a more mature youngster who received personal spiritual direction and instruction from the mystically gifted tailor. Tyranowski met with the entire Living Rosary organization every third Sunday of the month and was also available to any member of a Living Rosary group as needed. As new members joined the program, new groups were formed and a new leader chosen from outstanding members of an existing group. In weekly, hour-long meetings in his apartment, Tyranowski taught his group leaders both the fundamentals of the spiritual life and methods for systematiccilly examining and improving their daily lives. Jan Tyranowski s approach to the interior life included an apostolic dimension. The practice of the presence of God, he taught his young charges, should lead to an intensified life of service to others. Members of the Living Rosary pledged themselves to a life of intensified prayer as brothers in Christ who would help one another in all the circumstances of their lives as workers, as students (Karol Wojtyla tutored Mieczyslaw Malihski in Latin after they met in the Living Rosary), in the difficulties of their family lives. By 1943, some sixty young men, the youngest of whom was fourteen, were involved in the Living Rosary. Four group leaders, or animators, among them, Karol Wojtyla, were responsible to Tyranowski. All of this was clandestine, the Germans being particularly paranoid about youth groups as possible breeding grounds for anti-occupation conspiracies. The Gestapo once raided Tyranowski s apartment during a Living Rosary meeting. No one knows what the tailor said, but he evidently convinced the raiders that no conspiracy was afoot and the Germans left. * It was, of course, a conspiracy, but of a different sort. The Living Rosary groups also discussed how Poland might be reconstituted as a Christian society after the war. Those discussions included sharp arguments with representatives of partisan groups advocating violent resistance to the Germans, and, sometimes, Mieczyslaw Malihski recalled, a member of the Living Rosary disappeared into the woods ; occasionally they would return afterwards for a brief spell, and then be heard of no more. For the young Karol Wojtyla and his friends in the first Living Rosary groups, Tyranowski represented a unique lay combination of personal holiness and apostolic zeal, a kind of life that was completely unknown to us before. What drew them to him was his ability to shape souls by showing how religious truths were not interdictions [or] limitations but the means to form a life which through mercy becomes [a] participation in the life of God. To do this with adolescents ^with their distinctive combination of selfassurance and self-doubt ^was no mean accomplishment. And it seems to have

73 From the Underground 61 been a matter of personal example as much as formal teaching. As Karol Wojtyla later wrote, his way of life proved that one could not only inquire about God but that one could live with God. Tyranowski was the retail apostie par excellence. There was somethmg starding about him, a sort of strange relentlessness that created a bowstring of tension between the master and his disciples. But it was the relendessness of love, in which the depth of an individual s conversion to Christ was the key index of achievement. Leading a Living Rosary group, which meant taking a measure of responsibility for the lives of fifteen other young men, was one important factor m Karol Wojtyla s rapid maturation. In addition, Jan Tyranowski s personal sanctity exemplified the apostolic possibilities of a lay vocation, and helped confirm Wojtyla in the view that holiness did not reside solely inside the sancmary rail or in the parish priests house. You did not spend hours with Jan Tyranowski, who, as John Paul II later said, lived a very personal expenence o^ God and not conclude that sanctity was everyone s vocation m the Church. Tyranowski also deepened young Wojtyla s experience of prayer. Karol had always prayed. Now he prayed as a means of entering God s presence so that that experience animated every aspect of life, not merely his moments of con- ^Tyranowski s most enduring contribution to Karol Wojtyla s life and thinking was to introduce the young student-worker to St. John of the Cross, the sixteenth-century Spanish reformer of the Carmelite order who was decided a Doctor of the Church (Catholicism s greatest acknowledgment of theolo^cal creativity) in The tailor must have sensed that the Spanish mystic s poetry would appeal to young Wojtyla, and that first taste of the htera^ fruits of Carmelite mysticism soon led to Karol s reading St. John s major theological works: The Ascent of M ount Carmel, The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual Canticle, and The L iving Flame of Love.^ Carmelite m ysticism is a spirituality of abandonment. The dark night is the purification through which the soul must go in order to achieve communion with God. One learns to lay aside the hope for reward and to be drawn forward by God s grace for its own sake. In the dark night, God can seem absent. In the dark night, like Jesus in the desert and on the cross, one abandons every other security and plunges into a kind of radical emptiness, on the far side of which is the intense peace of mystical communion with God himself, a communion of shared presence, devoid of imagery and concepts. In this spiritual tradition, the living, loving God is beyond the reach of feeling, imagination, or thought. God can only be known in himself when all of our human attempts to reach God are abandoned in complete self-surrender, which is an act of complete love. It was an approach to the human condition as radically opposed to the Nazi will-to-power as could be imagined. Under the tutelage of the unexpected apostle, Jan Tyranowski, and amid the madnesses of the Occupation,

74 62 W itness to H ope the imitation of Christ through the complete handing over of every worldly security to the merciful will of God seized Karol Wojtyla s imaginahon. Over time, it would become the defining characteristic of his own discipleship. R e s i s t a n c e T h r o u g h C u l t u r e ; T h e R h a p s o d i c T h e a t e r At the same time that he was getting his first taste of manual labor and mking his first steps in mysticism, Karol Wojtyla became more immersed m theater than he would ever be again.., ^ Karol and his literary friends were determined that the German attemp to stamp out Polish culture would not deter them. In fact, the deliberate effort to decapitate Poland seemed to charge these young actors and authors wth an even more intense sense of purpose. In October 1939, a few weeks after returning from his trek to Poland s eastern borderlands, Karol and his Jagiellonian classmates, Juliusz Kydrynski and Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, jome y Danuta Michalowska, a high school student passionate about the theater, met at the Kydryriskis home to recite classic Polish texts, each taking different parts 69 Two months later, Karol wrote his first play, David, which has been lost. A letter to Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk described it as a dramatic poem, or drama, partly biblical, partly footed in Polish history, in which th e apprenhce playwright had bared many things, many matters of my soul. In the following months, he penned two more biblically inspired dramas. Job, written in the spring of 1940, was a meditation on justice in histoir, provoked by the experience of the Occupation. The play s narrauve line follows the biblical story rather closely, with Job s circumstance representing Poland s suffering under the Nazi jackboot an adaptation of nineteenth-century Polish Romanticism and its identification of dismembered Poland as the suffering Christ of nations. ^',,,, j In the summer of 1940, the twenty-year-old Wojtyla, who had been reading extensively in the Hebrew Bible, com pletedjerem iah. The play s inspiration was biblical, but the setting was late sixteenth-century Poland, where the Counter-Reformation Jesuit preacher Piotr Skarga was contending for e nation s soul. Wojtyla paralleled Skarga s fierce sermons on national reform with Jeremiah s biblical prophecies, calling the Kingdom of Judah to repentance. Jeremiah, which marked a literary advance over Job, mixed historical time with dramatic time and ingeniously wove biblical matenal together wia Skarga s preaching and his own script. Thematically,continued the young playwright s exploration of the why of Poland s suffering. * Another aspect of Karol s intensified dramatic activity involved Ae famous Polish actor and director Juliusz Osterwa, whom the Nazis had forbidden to practice his craft. Like Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk, Osterwa thought of theater as a vocation as well as a career. During the Second Polish Republic he

75 From the Underground 63 had founded a theater company, Reduta, to bring the classics of the Polish stage to a mass audience. The members of the company lived as a community, in an almost monastic style, and were deeply committed to the ideals expressed in nineteenth-century Polish Romantic literature.m eeting Osterwa through Juliusz Kydrynski, Wojtyla soon found himself involved in various of the older actor s projects, including fresh translations of the world s dramatic masterpieces into contemporary Polish. Karol s contribution to this endeavor reflected the quality of the classical education he had received in Wadowice. He prepared afresh translation of Sophocles Oedipusirom the original Greek, while Osterwa was working on Antigone and Hamlety^ Osterwa came to at least one performance that Karol and his friends staged in the Kydrynskis thirdfloor apartment at 10 Felicjanek Street: Act Two of Stefan Zeromski s The Quail, an examination of love and duty, with Wojtyla in the role of a country teacher and Danuta Michalowska as the teacher s wife coveted by another man, played by Kydrynski. Osterwa seemed to lose interest in Kydrynski, Wojtyla, and their friends after they produced The Quail. Perhaps the difficulties of performing in an ersatz theater before an audience of thirty people dampened the veteran actor s enthusiasm for underground drama. There also seem to have been artistic tensions between the youngsters and the older man. By the time Osterwa had left Krakow, Karol confessed to being not as impressed by him as he used to be. Osterwa s celebrity was getting in the way of the dramatic exploration of the interior life to which Karol and his young colleagues were committed. Osterwa s departure left a bit of a void, but that would be more than filled in July 1941 when, a month after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk came to live in Krakow. Life in Wadowice (which, like Oswiqcim, renamed Auschwitz, had been absorbed into the Third Reich) had become too dangerous for so visible an intellectual as Kotlarczyk. So he and his wife, Zofia, moved into the Wojtyla apartment in Dqbniki.* Although Kotlarczyk worked as a tram driver, what he burned to do was put his ideas about a theater of the word into practice. This new form of drama was an artistic experiment, but he also saw that it could be a protest against the extermination of the Polish nation s culture on its own soil, a form of under- *In mid-december another refugee from Wadowice came to live in the apartment at Tyniecka, 10: Maria, Mieczyslaw Kotlarcyzk s younger sister, then sixteen. The family was afraid Aat she would die if she was sent away for slave labor; so they sneaked her across the Skawa River in the dead of night and got her to Krakow by train. She lived with Karol Wojtyla and the Kotlarczyks until August 1942, at which point Wojtyla s aunts, the ovraers of the building, fearful that the Gestapo might take repriuls if the unregistered Maria were discovered, suggested that she move elsewhere. Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk got her to Kroscienko, where she could obtain the identity card that was unavailable in Krakow to an escapee from the Reich. Karol Wojtyla didn t agree with his aunts and told Maria that, if it were his decision, she could stay. Fifty years later, Maria Kotlarczyk Cwikla remembers an atmosphere without fear in the catacomb apartment. It was more like a theater, she recalled, with rehearsals and recitals going on constantly. Her brother, ever the teacher, gavfe her a bibliography to work through so that she wouldn t waste the year away.

76 64 Witness to H ope ground resistance movement against the Nazi Occupation. M fater recalled, what came to be known as the Rhapsodic Theater was born m that room, lent by Karol Wojtyla to the refugee Kotlarczyks^ The key organizational meeting was held on August 22, 1941 m Debowski family s apartment at 7 Komorowskiego Street. Kotlarczyk l^ d out his ideas that afternoon before a group that included Karol Wojtyla, Hahna Krohkiewicz (who had arrived in Krakow the previous autumn with cabbages and potatoes as barter for rental), Tadeusz Kwiatkowski (Hahna s future husband, who was involved in underground literary publishing), Juhusz Kydrynski, Danuta Michalowska, the host couple with their daughters^styna a L Irena, and several others. Kotlarczyk made it clear that this would be very much his enterprise, run according to his pnnciples. He could be stubborn, even fanatical about those principles-over half a centu^ lately Danum Michalowska, with the affection of mature friendship, would say that Savanarola was nothing compared to Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk pursuing his vismn. No doubt that was part of the reason that he attracted discip es^but his visionary s insistence on doing it his way led to a rift. Kotlarczyk s ideas about the artistic path to pursue differed widely from Juhusz Kydrynski s and these two strong and stubborn men soon came to a parting of the ways. With Kydrynski gone, Kotlarczyk quickly whittled down the August 22 group to the players who would be the core of the Rhapsodic Theater dunng tire war years: the director himself, Krystyna Dqbowska, Raima Krolikiewic, Danuta Michalowska, and Karol Wojtyla.B^ Tadeusz Ostaszewski, a sculptor who was Krystyna s fiance, became the group s stage designer. With the exceptio of Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk, they were all in their late teens or early twenties. Rehearsals were held Wednesdays and Saturdays, m the late afternoon between the end of work and the beginning of curfew. The young actors often rehearsed in the catacomb apartment in D^bniki, someumes by candlelight when the power had been cut off. On their way to Tyniecka, 10 they walked past posters announcing an ever-increasing list of executions by firing squads, their virtually certain fate if they had been caught.8s Their first production took place in the apartment of the Szkocki family, who had befriended Karol Wojtyla during his first year at the Jagiellonian an to whom he had been introduced by Juhusz Kydrynski. Fittingly enough, the play was Slowacki s King-Spirit, which they performed four ti cs, beginm n^n L vem b er 1, 1941-All Saints Day in the liturgical calendar, ferol Wojtyla took the role of King Boleslaw the Bold, who ordered the murder of St. Sknislaw. Supported by Kotlarczyk (but criticized by others), Wojtyla gave e role of the villain a new twist, playing the king as if he were a man preparing himself for confession years after his crime.86 * The Rhapsodists program picked up speed m o er Slowacki poem, Beniowski, was given one performance m February. T h followed in March by a poetry cycle written by Jan Kasprowcz, Hymns whic the troupe interpreted as a Passion oratorio. Wyspianski s Hour, a production

77 From the Underground 65 assembled from pieces of three Wyspianski plays, was performed four umes once before Juliusz Osterwa, who pronounced himself highly impressed. A similar montage of poems, Norwid s Hour, was given three performances, and Mickiewicz s Pan T adeu szw s produced twice. The last Rhapsodic Theater production in which Karol Wojtyla participated was Slowacki s Samuel Zborowski, he played the title role of a sixteenth-century Polish nobleman rebelling against the establishment of his day. The premiere was on March 16,1943, and the play was performed three times.87,,,,, Given the circumstances under which they worked which mcluded the necessity of constantly changing rehearsal and performance sites to avoi arousing Gestapo suspicions the Rhapsodic Theater s productivity during the Occupation was remarkable: seven productions in twenty-two formal performances and more than one hundred rehearsals, all of them clandestine. Three more productions were prepared but never perfoimed, Sienkiewicz s Quo Vadis and an adaptation of Dante s Divme Comedy. For the members of this unique troupe, underground theatrical actiwsm not a matter of filling time that would otherwise have been lost to boredom. Ih e young actors of the Rhapsodic Theater certainly thought of themselves as involved in a resistance movement, according to Danuta Michalowska and Halina Kwiatkowska.^^ And their purpose was equally clear: to save our cu - ture from the Occupation and to help restore the nation s soul, which was a precondition to its political resurrection.9 In addition to the lifelong friendships that were formed, the Rhapsodic Theater helped forge the man Karol Wojtyla would become in several ways. Kotlarczyk s rigorous direction honed his articulation, his timing, and his sense of connection with an audience. Ayoung man who could calmly conunue a clandestine performance o f Pan Tadeusz while Nazi megaphones b itte d their propaganda through the streets below was likely to be able to handle himse publicly in virtually any dramatic situation.^i The themes explored in Kotlarczyk s inner theater, which deepened Wojtyla s appropnauon of the Polish Romantic tradition while stripping it of some of its more messianic excesses, also left their imprint. Slowacki s prominence in the work of the wartime ^apsodic Theater was not accidental. The poet who sought to remake Poland through the power o f Stowo, the word, found a posthumous vehicle for his hopes in Kotlarczyk s conviction that the power of drama lay in the spoken and received word, notin theatrics. ThisleftadeepandabidingimpressiononKarolWojtyla whose literary instincts had already inclined him to the view that the word could alter what the world of power thought were unalterable facts, if that word were proclaimed clearly, honestly, and forcefully enough. This Christian subtext to the Rhapsodic Theater, which reflected the New Testament image of the world created through the Word, the Logos who was with God and who was God (see John 1.1-3), also found expression in Kotlarczyk s understanding of theater as ritual. In the world according to Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk, one did not simply go to the theater to be enter-

78 66 Witness to H ope tained. Rather, Kotiarczyk deliberately crafted the dramatic method of the Rhapsodists to evoke sentiments of transcendence and patriotism in a quasiliturgical atmosphere. The word of truth, publicly, indeed almost liturgically, proclaimed was the antidote the Rhapsodic Theater sought to apply to the violent lies of the Occupation. The tools for fighting evil included speaking truth to power. That was what Kotlarczyk and his Rhapsodic Theater believed, and lived. That belief and that experience made an indelible impression on Karol Wojtyla, who would not forget when, on a different kind of stage, he would confront another totalitarian power in the future. ^ Some have suggested that, confronted by the horror of Nazi-occupied Poland, Karol Wojtyla retreated into a religious quietism. ^ In the light of the evidence, it is clear that he had a decision to make. Some young Poles chose armed resistance or clandestine sabotage. The evidence makes clear that Karol Wojtyla deliberately chose the power of resistance through culture, through the power of the word, in the conviction that the word (and in Christian terms, the Word) is that on which the world turns. Those who question the choice he made are also questioning that judgment about the power of the Word and words. R e m o r a l iz in g P o l it ic s The Rhapsodic Theater was allied to a broader movement of clandestine cultural resistance known as UNIA [Union], of which Karol Wojtyla was a member. UNIA was founded in 1940 through a merger of three preexisting underground organizations, complemented by recruits from the nowproscribed Catholic youth groups and from the nationwide Catholic Action movement. ^ The new organization was structured territorially and included a Krakow district organization. UNIA was built by its members recruiting or recommending new members. After scrutiny by local UNIA leaders, new members took a solemn oath committing themselves to the organization s'* principles and to the rules of conspiracy. UNIA tried to apply Christian moral principles and Catholic social doctrine to public life at a time when there was, officially, no public life for Poles. Its name, Union, expressed its vision of postwar Poland as a nation in which differences of ethnicity, religion, and social class would be overcome through two shared convictions: politics and economics should be guided by the universal moral law, the only legitimate source of public authority, and free individuals should make the common good a priority in their public lives. In one sense, UNIA was an attempt to articulate a political philosophy capable of disciplining the talent for divisiveness that had made the history of Polish politics such a bedlam, leaving the Polish nation so vulnerable to its enemies. In another respect, UNIA was an underground effort to lay the foundations of a new Polish state that would embody in its laws, economy, and public

79 From the Underground 67 ethos the communitarian themes of Catholic social doctrine developed by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI: support for the family as the basic unit of society; the anti-totalitarian principle of subsidiarity, according to which decision making should be left at the lowest level possible in society (rather than absorbed by an omni-competent state); and self-government, UNIA s term for Catholic personalism and its stress on the inalienable dignity of the individual man or woman created in the image and likeness of God. Those principles, UNIA leaders thought, were a solid foundation for a democratic state, and a barrier against both the radical individualism of one stream of modern political thought and the totalitarian demolition of individuality. UNIA had a military component, which at full strength numbered some 20,000 members, many of whom saw combat as part of the underground Polish Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising of August UNIA also sponsored another dangerous form of anti-nazi activism. Its Council to Help the Jews, code-named Zegota, delivered false identification papers to some 50,000Jews trying to escape Hider s Final Solution, hid some 2,500Jewish children from Nazi manhunters in Warsaw, and provided regular financial support to approximately 4,000 persons. UNIA, however, was primarily an instrument of ideological and cultural resistance to the Nazi attempt to erase Poland from the map of history. It maintained an underground Institute of Central Europe for research purposes, and sponsored a number of columns, attempts to organize and catechize the worlds of labor, culture, youth, and women. The UNIA-sponsored Cultural Union supported a wide range of cultural resistance activities. In addition to lectures and discussions, it published an underground newspaper. Culture of Tomorrow, and a Unionist Library Series to replace what the Nazis were systematically destroying. UNIA also supported a number of underground theaters, including the Rhapsodic Theater, Mieczyslaw Kodarczyk having been a member of UNIA for some time. UNIA was a pioneering effort to build what a later generation would call civil society from under the rubble of totalitarianism. Its principles of selfgovernment and union were an attempt to marry the Polish passion for freedom ( Nothing about us without us ) to a Catholic-inspired communitarian concept of the common good. History, in the person of Stalin, would determine that UNIA s dreams for postwar Poland were dashed. Its communitarian ideas about a just modem society and a reconstituted European community remained part of the intellectual architecture of Karol Wojtyla for life. ^ Se m in a r ia n i n H id in g Death was an ever-present reality in occupied Krakow. Before his twenty-first birthday Karol Wojtyla had seen a lot of it. He had witnessed violent death on the refugees road to Tarnow. His professors, men of culture and distinction, had been summarily arrested and carted off to concentration camps. The

80 68 Witness to H ope Gestapo had kidnapped the parish priests of D.bniki, many of -hom W d be suteequendy martyred. Krakow s historic and vibrant Jewish life was being systemaucally destroyed, as Jews were herded into a ghetto, J the thousands, dispatched to the extermination c ^ p s or sent to n^rby Plaszow labor camp where some were saved by being named on what world would eventually know as Schindler s list. W nitvla Although he had become progressively weaker, the elder Karol Wojtyla d.e capc.in," was an anchor tor his son in diese oroubled his friends, his underground studies, his clandestine theatrical life. He had found a new spiritual mentor injan lyranowski. But his father the sole surviving member of his immediate family and the last living link to an almos unimaginably simpler past. Father and son continued to share the on Tyntecka Street, and the older Wojtyla attended his son and Lamatic readings.^ When Lolek began to work at the Zakrzowek quarry he walked back to town with Juliusz Kydryhski, whose mother gave him a late afternoon dinner and then sent something home with him for the captain, who had been bedridden since Christmas February 18, 1941, began like any other day during this period. Aft working at the quarry Karol stopped, as usual, at the KydryhsHs to inner and some medicine for his father. He hurried back to the Debniki apartment through the bitter cold, accompanied by Juliusz Kydrynski s sister Maria who would heat up the captain s meal. Entering the catacomb, Maria turned right into the small kitchen, while Karol went to his father, whose room was the end of the dark hallway on the left. The captain was dead Maria Kydryhska remembers the son in tears, blaming himself for not being prese/t when his father died. He then ran to St. Stanislaw Kostka for a priest who came and gave the deceased man the last rites of the Churchy L le k spent the entire night on his knees beside his father s body praying and talking^with Juliusz Kydrynski, who had come to be with him; the orphane young man later recalled that, despite his friend s presence, I never felt pilnne Father Figlewicz said the funeral Mass on February 22 at the R a t a e cemetery, in whose military section Karol Wojtyla was buried on another bitterly cow day. The Kydrynskis, concerned about the twenty-year-old orphan livilg by himself, invited young Karol to stay with them. He accepted moving backv the Debniki apartment in the late summer of 1941 when Mieczyslaw and Zofia Kotlarczyk escaped Wadowice and came to Krakow. Juliusz Kydrynski remembered this as a period of intense reflection for his fnend, who would sometimes pray while lying on the floor in a cruciform position Catholicism does not consider the priesthood a career but a vocation, a calling or invitation from God to put on Jesus Christ m a singular way. priesly vocation is thus a complex work of the Holy Spirit whose - n e r dynamics cannot be reduced to psychological categories. Being o^haned before hi twenty-first birthday certainly had its effect on Karol Wojtyla s discernment of

81 From the Underground 69 a call to the priesthood. That it took almost a year and a half for the decision to mature suggests that considerable interior wrestling went on before the final step was taken. Later in life, when describing these years to friends and colleagues, he would speak of an evolutionary process of gradual clarification or interior illumination. During 1941 and the first half of 1942, Karol Wojtyla, moved by the humiliation of totalitarian occupation and by the heroism he had witnessed in the face of it, began to sense in himself a progressive detachment from my earlier plans.! jh e priesthood began to loom larger as a way to live in resistance to the degradation of human dignity by brutal ideology. There were other influences at work, and a pattern began to emerge from what might otherwise seem a random series of acquaintances. The captain and Lolek had never discussed a possible vocation to the priesthood, but the son would later recall the father s life of prayer and self-sacrifice as a kind of domestic seminary.!! The same might be said of the workers at the quarry and the Solvay chemical plant, the heroic Salesians of the Dqbniki parish, the Krakow Carmelites with whom he once made a wartime retreat, the Living Rosary and Jan Tyranowski, and the continuing guidance of Father Figlewicz. Teachers and contemporaries in Wadowice and Krakow had told him that he was bound for the altar. He had always resisted the notion. Now, an idea that would eventually become one of his deepest convictions began to take shape: that in the sometimes baffling designs of Providence, there is no such thing as a mere coincidence. An orphan before his majority; his intellectual gifts and his longstanding bent toward a life of prayer; the hardships he had endured during the Occupation; his passion for the theater like the people who had touched his life most profoundly, these were not fragmentary incidents in a life, but signposts along a path pointing in the direction of the priesthood. It was not so much a question of his choosing this vocation against others. Throughout the spring and summer of 1942 the conviction grew in him that he had been chosen. And to that election there could be only one response.! In the autumn of 1942, Karol Wojtyla walked to the seventeenth-century residence of the archbishops of Krakow at Franciszkanska, 3, a few blocks from the Old Town market square, and asked to be received as a candidate for the priesthood. The rector of the seminary. Father Jan Piwowarczyk, accepted him, and Karol began to lead a new, double life. In the first days of the Occupation, the Gestapo had tried to control the seminary, intending to downgrade it to a kind of clerical trade school with no instruction by university-level professors. The seminary, with the agreement of Archbishop Sapieha, simply ignored these instructions. The Gestapo s next move was to ban the reception of new seminarians. The archbishop s response was to hire the young aspirants as parish secretaries, place them in local parishes, and have them attend classes clandestinely at the Krakow seminary. Raids were frequent. On one occasion five students were arr,ested, immediately executed by firing squad or dispatched to Auschwitz.

82 70 Witness to H ope The archbishop then decided to take the seminary fully underground. Candidates would be accepted secretly. They would continue their work, telling no one of their new position. They would study in their free time, occasionally presenting themselves to professors for examination. And in due course, it was hoped, they would complete their studies and be ordained, having managed to avoid the Gestapo in the interim. Karol Wojtyla was among the first ten seminarians chosen for this extraordinary process of clandestine priestly formation. He continued to work at Borek Fal^cki. Always a reader, he studied during the overnight shift without drawing special attention. He also continued to perform with the Rhapsodic Theater, but Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk eventually had to be told that his young protege s time could no longer be poured so readily into preparing scripts, rehearsing, and performing. Kotlarczyk passionately disagreed with Karol s decision to become a priest and tried for days to dissuade him. ^ '*It was not that Kotlarczyk was anticlerical. On the contrary, he was a devout Catholic. In his visionary s world, though, the most important thing was the theater, where one best served God and Poland. Halina Krolickiewicz remembers that it was all a complicated business because everybody thought [Wojtyla] would become an actor. But we also knew his piety and devotion, so we understood. ^ But it took a while. Wojtyla s friends recruited Tadeusz Kudlinski, whom Karol knew and respected from the Jagiellonian student theater group, for an all-night, curfew-breaking, one-on-one debate with Lolek. Kudlinski reportedly tried to persuade Karol to remain in the world through the Gospel parable of the talents: God had given him abilities as an actor, and it would be burying his talents to refuse to develop them. That argument failing, Kudlinski tried the young seminarian s favorite poet, Norwid, himself borrowing from Scripture: Light does not exist to be kept under a bushel. Karol refused to budge. He had been chosen. He could not decline the gift. Wojtyla s biggest problem in his early days as a clandestine seminarian was not with his Rhapsodic Theater colleagues, however, but with philosophy, and specifically with metaphysics. Then as now, the intellectual preparation of seminarians included courses in philosophy. One of the books Karol was assigned to read and digest, for examination was Kazimierz Wais s Metaphysics, a 1926 text written in the dry, dense, highly abstract formulas of early twentiethcentury neo-scholasticism. Karol Wojtyla, a literary man, had never encountered anything like this before, and it floored him. But, as he later said, after two months of hacking my way through this vegetation I came to a clearing, to the discovery of the deep reasons for what until then I had only lived and felt.... What intuition and sensibility had until then taught me about the world found solid confirmation. Put another way, Karol Wojtyla was inoculated against the infection of radical skepticism in the chemical factory at Borek Falecki, as watery lime splashed against the pages of Metaphysics. There he discovered a new world of exis-

83 From the Underground 71 tence built around the classic conviction, central to the philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, that the world was intelligible.^os That conviction was the foundation from which he would think philosophically in the future. The war had given him a direct, indeed harsh, experience of reality. Wais, for all the agonies he inflicted, put in place the first building blocks for a philosophical defense of realism the intelligibility of the world against radical skepticism and its cousin, moral relativism. Reality soon imposed itself on the worker-seminarian in other, direct ways. On February 29,1944, Karol Wojtyla was walking home from a double shift at Borek Fal^cki when he was struck down by a German truck. Mrs. Jozefa Florek, seeing the body in the road, jumped off the tram she was riding and found Karol lying unconscious. Shielding him from the traffic, she managed to flag down a car. A German officer got out and told her to fetch some muddy water from a nearby ditch. They cleaned the blood off Karol, and when the officer saw that he was still alive, he stopped a passing lumber truck and told them to take the semiconscious man to a local hospital. When Karol woke up at last he found his head wrapped in bandages and his arm in a cast. He had suffered a severe concussion, numerous cuts, and a shoulder injury. He spent the next two weeks in the hospital, recuperating and pondering the peculiar ways of Providence. That he had survived this incident seemed a confirmation of his priestiy vocation. While living his double life, Karol often went to the archbishop s residence to serve Archbishop Sapieha s morning Mass, a practice he continued after recovering from his accident. One morning in April 1944, his fellow server and another clandestine student for the priesthood, Jerzy Zachuta, didn t show up at Franciszkaiiska, 3. After Mass, Karol went to Zachuta s home to see what had happened. In the middle of the previous night, the Gestapo had taken his classmate away. Immediately afterward, the name of Jerzy Zachuta appeared on a Gestapo poster listing Poles to be shot.^o One was taken, the other remained. In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences. Four months later, on August 1, Poland s capital exploded in the Warsaw Uprising, the desperate attempt by the underground Polish Home Army to nd the nation s capital of the Germans and establish the legitimacy of an independent Polish government before the Soviet army arrived. After two months of indescribably fierce fighting, including pew-by-pew, hand-to-hand combat in St. John s Cathedral, the city fell while the Soviet army satjust across the Vistula, doing nothing; better for the Germans to exterminate the Home Army than to have to do it themselves. Warsaw was then leveled on Hider s personal order. Nothing more than two feet high was to be left standing. August 6, the liturgical feast of the Transfiguration, was Black Sunday in Krakow as the Gestapo swept the city, rounding up young men to forestall a reprise of the Warsaw Uprising. Archbishop Sapieha immediately called in his underground seminarians, intending to hide them,in his residence. Mieczyslaw Malinski, by now another clandestine candidate for the priest-

84 72 W itness t o Hope t hood, had taken a group of boys out for a hike that afternoon. On their way back they spotted the Gestapo roundup and hid. That evening Maliriski, after making provision for his young charges, snuck through fields and neighbors gardens, working his way back to his home in D^bniki, where he found his family safe. In the early morning hours, there was an ominous knock on the door. The family froze, but it was a priest from the archdiocese, sent by Sapieha to order Maliriski to report to the archbishop s residence later that day. When he arrived there, Maliriski s first question was, Is Karol Wojtyla here? i^^ He was, but it had been a close call. During the sweep the day before, the Gestapo had searched the first two floors of the house at Tyniecka, 10. Karol had remained behind a closed door in his basement apartment, praying for deliverance with heart pounding.*^^ Once the Germans departed emptyhanded, Irena Szkocka volunteered to help Lolek get across town to the archbishop s, walking a block ahead as a scout. Entering the residence, he was immediately given a cassock to wear; in the event of a raid. Archbishop Sapieha intended to inform the Gestapo that all these young men were his secretaries. Even asylum created problems. Hans Frank s Labor Office began to make inquiries about the Borek Fal^cki worker who wasn t showing up on the time sheets. At the archbishop s request. Father Figlewicz met with the plant director to see what could be done to make Karol Wojtyla disappear. The director was hesitant to take such a chance, but he must have made arrangements. Inquiries about robotnik Wojtyla ceased. As Wojtyla himself would later put it, the authorities were unable to find my trail. ^ Father Stanislaw Smoleriski was the young seminarians spiritual director and Father Kazimierz Kusak was prefect of studies. With Father Piwowarczyk, who had accepted Wojtyla as a clandestine seminarian, now assigned to a parish. Archbishop Sapieha himself was the rector. Living in daily contact with the archbishop, Karol Wojtyla came to know the man who would be his model of Church leadership for more than half a century. A n U nbroken P r in c e Adam Stefan Sapieha was the scion of a noble Polish-Lithuanian family. His early ecclesiastical career was spent in Rome, where he served as a secretary to Pope Pius X, who personally consecrated him a bishop in the Sistine Chapel on December 17,1911, giving him a plain gold pectoral cross. ^ Sapieha was a short man of iron will, a leader with a ^ eat natural authority that reflected his innate dignity and strength of character.'^ At his ceremonial ingress into his new see in 1912, he went straight from the railway station to visit a poorhouse, keeping the gentry who had expected to host him for breakfast waiting and causing a flutter among his fellow nobles.*^ In a line of bishops that traced its roots back to the martyred St. Stanislaw, he would, in his old age, give new meaning to the tradition that the bishop of Krakow was the final defensor civitatis, the ultimate defender of the city. '^

85 From the Underground 73 The Prince Archbishop, as everyone called him, had not prospered during the reign of Pius XI. These two strong personalities had crossed swords when the future pope was papal nuncio in Poland in the immediate aftermath of World War I, and during Pius XI s pontificate, Sapieha was denied the cardinal s red hat worn by his two predecessors, Albin Dunajewski and Jan Puzyna.ii A week before Pius XI died in February 1939, Sapieha, pleading ill health and age (he was seventy-two at the time), wrote the pope asking permission to resign a rarity among bishops in that era. His letter was never answered because of Pius s death. When Sapieha renewed the request to the newly elected Pius XII on a visit to Rome in April of that year, he was refused. The political situation was deteriorating and things were too unstable to risk a change. Sapieha would have to stay in place. He soon became the uncrowned king of Poland, or, in the words of John Paul II, an unbroken prince who was a real pater patriae to a nation facing extermination. * The primate. Cardinal Hlond, having fled in September 1939 with the Polish government, lived in southern France from the fall of 1940 through February 1944, when he was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Wiedenbriick in Westphalia, where he was liberated by American troops on April 1, During the entire war, Adam Stefan Sapieha, growing stronger as he grew older, was the unshakable foundation of Catholic resistance to the Nazi Occupation. In ancient Polish custom, the Primate of Poland held the office of Interrex during the period between the death of one Polish king and the election of his successor. Archbishop Sapieha was the de facto Interrex of Poland for more than five years the focal point of legitimate authority in a nation being run by gangsters. It was a role he assumed without hesitation. Hans Frank, evidently looking for some sliver of legitimation, hinted repeatedly that an invitation to dinner at the archbishop s residence would be well-received. Sapieha finally issued the invitation and sat the master of Occupied Poland at the other end of his formal dinner table. The two men were alone. Dinner was then served: black bread, made in part from acorns; jam made from beets (sugar beets for sweetness, red beets for color); ersatz coffee. When Frank stared down the table at his host, the archbishop blandly explained that this was the ration available on the food coupons distributed by the Nazis, and he certainly couldn t risk reprimand or the arrest of one of his servants by dealing on the black market.hans Frank s reply is lost to history. Presumably he did not press for a second invitation. Sapieha s natural authority reflected his aristocratic lineage and bearing, but bloodlines cilone could not sustain a man in these desperate circumstances. Every night at 9 p.m., the seminarians saw the Prince Archbishop go * The Unbroken Prince is the title of a play by Juliusz Slowacki, an adaption of a seventeenthcentury drama by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, which tells the story of the martyrdom of Prince Ferdinand of Portugal, who died because he refused to give a Christian town to the Muslims in exchange for his own life.^

86 74 Witness to H ope into his chapel alone, for an hour. It was understood that he was presenting his problems to his Lord, and that he was not to be disturbed.'^^ The problems were grave in the last extreme. His priests were being arrested and shipped off to concentration camps or executed. Parishes had to be assisted in their efforts to help prisoners at the Nazi labor camps, by hiding food in the woods for them. A constant stream of prisoners into Gestapo headquarters across the street from the archbishop s residence had to be defended. Families whose fathers had disappeared needed assistance. So did Krakow sjewish community, on whose behalf Sapieha made representations to Hans Frank at least twice. The archbishop also ordered baptismal certificates issued tojews in order to help them escape the Holocaust. There were parents and spouses to be comforted. All of this Sapieha did on his own, cut off from contact with Rome. On two occasions the archbishop tried to warn the Vatican of Nazi plans to exterminate Jews and Polish nationals.'^ Yet in the midst of the Occupation, Adam Stefan Sapieha planned for the future. A member of the reformist wing of the Polish hierarchy, Sapieha had broken up huge old parishes before the war and created new ones, bringing his priests closer to his people. He had also reformed the seminary, insisting on serious theological instruction. As the war wound down, he began to make plans for a new Catholic newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny [Universal Weekly], to be edited by a young layjournalist, Jerzy Turowicz. The archbishop assigned one of the archdiocese s leading priest-intellectuals, Father Jan Piwowarczyk, the former seminary rector, as ecclesiastical adviser to the paper. Above all, Sapieha was convinced that the revitalization of Polish Catholicism after the war required a well-educated and dynamic corps of priests. So he risked his life in creating the clandestine seminary program during the early years of the Occupation, and he quite literally turned his house over to the underground seminary in the aftermath of Black Sunday, Both students and facultyjoked about being under house arrest. ^^ Life was spartan. Each student had his own bed or cot, but the only other furniture was a common table. What meager personal possessions they had brought with them were stored in suitcases under their beds, in what had once been one of the archbishop s drawing rooms. At his first meeting with the students the archbishop announced that he was not prepared to wait any longer for the Germans to reopen the seminary. He himself would be the rector. If they were discovered and the Nazis wanted to take reprisals against him, so be it. We will trust in God s Providence, he concluded. No harm will befall us. ^ 2 6 For a man of his background, and given the ecclesiastical protocol of the time, Sapieha was remarkably available to his young boarders. He would simply show up during recreation, visiting with the students; he tried to have a word with each of them during the course of the day. The students, for their part, came to know the man who would ordain them priests. They could see the depth of his piety, both in his solitary evening prayer and in the long thanksgiving meditations he made after saying his morning Mass.

87 78 Witness to H ope the fall of 1945, while working as a teaching assistant in undergraduate theology courses. Among his professors was the formidable Father Ignacy Rozycki. The demanding theologian noticed that his prize pupil put a small inscription To Jesus through Mary, or Jesus, Mary, and Joseph at the top of every page of every paper he submitted. It was a habit Karol had formed years before, and it would continue throughout his writing life. Rozycki encouraged Wojtyla s interest in St.John of the Cross. Karol, for his part, continued to teach himself Spanish, a project he had begun the year before using a German- Spanish dictionary as his guide; his goal was to read the Carmelite mystic in the original. Karol had in fact been wrestling for some time with the question of whether he should enter the Discalced Carmelite monastery at Czema to pursue a contemplative life in complete withdrawal from the world. At one point in 1945 he finally put the question to the Prince Archbishop, who responded tersely: First you have to finish what you'have begun. Sapieha s brisk conclusion resolved the matter. Over a half-century later, John Paul II would reminisce that, despite his intense interest in John of the Cross, I don t think I had a very strong vocation to the Carmelites. Shortly after the war, Karol became aware of the self-sacrifice of Father Maximilian Mary Kolbe in the Auschwitz starvation bunker. The martyred Franciscan, who had given up his life to save a fellow prisoner, a married man with children, became a model of the priest' as a man who lives his sacramental condition as an alter Christus, another Christ, by complete self-emptying in service to his people. It was an ideal that was inculcated at the Krakow seminary through communal recitation of the Litany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim, a staple of the seminary s piety based on the New Testament s Letter to the Hebrews. The Krakow litany, which includes eight invocations of Jesus Christ as the victim of-a redeeming sacrifice, drove home to the seminarians that dying-to-self self-gift or self-immolation ^was the crux of any Christian vocation seriously lived, and most especially the vocation of the priesthood. The idea of self-gift would reemerge time and again in Wqjtyla s life-work, and would become one of the crucial concepts in his philosophy of the human person and of human moral agency. T h e P r ie s t On February 18, 1946, Adam Stefan Sapieha was created a cardinal by Pope Pius XII. When he returned to Krakow in March, his train was met at the station by a group of students who honored this great hero of the Occupation by lifting his car and carrying it and the new Prince of the Church to St. Mary s Church in the Old Town markef square.i^^ At a seminary celebration of Sapieha s cardinalate, Karol Wojtyla declaimed a homily by Father Kajsiewicz, a nineteenth-century Polish hero, on the religious meaning of patriotism hardly a random choice of topic.'^^

88 READINGS FOR SESSION 2

89 L imminenza Jubilee Year p f R edem ption Address delivered by Pope John Paul II to Cardinals and Members of the Roman Curia During the Traditional Exchange of Chi^istmas Greetings (Decem ber 2 3,1982) VENERABLE BROTHERS of the Sacred College. Dearest Sons! The nearness of Christmas finds us gathered together again for the customary and welcome exchange of wishes. Our hearts pour out in mutual joy: Dominus prope est! The Lord is near.' The anticipation of the earthly nativity of the Son of God made man concentrates our attention, <* our watching and our prayer these d^ys and sharpens it and renders it more intense and humble. I therefore thank»,you for your presence, which permits us a foretaste, in spiritual communion, -of the richness of the mystery which we are about to relive. In a special way, I am grateful to the venerable Cardinal Dean for the fitting words, which dn behalf of all of you he has just addressed to me. Together, let us go to meet Redeemer who comes: the Adve liturgy has by now fully disposed for this spiritual journey which vances toward the peoples Await One: We have, until now, been in i company of Isaiah, the type of \ awaited Messiah; following in footsteps of the Baptist, who again made his voice resound for i to prepare the way ;^and above i Mary, the attentive Virgin, has be beside us with her example and tercession, because where one awa Jesus, Mary is always present, tl Morning Star who prepares t advent of the Sun of Justice. ^ Now the days are about to completed^ for that blessed bir ^which we will relive in the divi1 toysteries of the holy night; the fu 'ness of time is reached, when, as I 142

90 JUBILEE YEAR 143 Paul says, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to deliver us."^ Jesus is born to deliver, He comes to redeem us. He comes to reconcile us with God. As St. Augustine well expressed with his usual eloquence, "per Caput mstrum reconciliamur Deo, quia in iilo est divinitas Unigeniti facta particeps mortalitatis nostrae, ut et SOSparticipes eius immortalitatis esrnius ( Through our Head we are reconciled with God, because in Him the divinity of the Only-begotten ^ares in our mortality, so that we Slay share in His immortality. ) f Christmas is the beginning of liat admirable exchange which pitesus to God. It is the beginning of Ademption. You understand, therefore, what ipapt this approaching solemnity lust have for us, when with the lie Church we are ardently preparfof the celebration of the Jubilee '.edemption. It is on this extraordi- :y event that I would like to dwell i this occasion, the first which presitself since the announcement of date' at the conclusion of the lembly of the Sacred College, last rember 26.1 would like to open my irt to you, to make known to you, to the entire Church with you, intentions, in a word, my ights concerning the meaning and le of this Holy Year. This is not place to discuss the organiza- ^al and practical details: They will come in due time. It presses upon me rather to reflect together with you on the varied content of the jubilee that is being prepared. Jubilee of transition First of all, the jubilee year is meant to emphasize the aspect which captures the attention of those who are open to the voice of the Spirit who speaks to the churches : the role that this jubilee of grace assumes, between the Holy Year celebrated in 1975 and the one that will be celebrated in 2000, at the dawn of the third millennium the great Holy Year. It is then a jubilee of transition between these two dates, like a bridge jutting out toward the future begirming with the extraordinary experiences of all the happenings of eight years ago: in fact, Paul VI, of venerable memory, called all the faithful at that time to live their own spiritual renewal in Christ and reconciliation with God. It is the Jubilee of Redemption: Actually, if every Holy Year proposes on a universal scale the probing of the mystery of redemption and makes it relived in faith and penance; if, indeed, the Church always recalls redemption, not only every year, but every Sunday, every day, every moment of its life, because in the celebration of the sacraments it is totally immersed in this sublime and unique gift of love of God offered to us in Christ the Redeemer, then this next 'Phil.'i:5. 'See Mt. 3;3; Lk. 3:4. "Ma/. 4:2. SeeLfe. 2:6. 'Gat 4: 4. Eph. 187,6, 20: CSEL 57, p. 99. Reu. 2:29.

91 144 THEPOPE^SPEAKS jubilee is an ordinary year celebrated, in an extraordinary way. The possession of the grace of redemption, ordinarily experienced in anc} by means of the structure of the Church itself, becomes extraordinary because of the peculiar nature pf the nounced celebration. Placed in this perspective; in the Kairos of the historical date that we are living, this jubilee acquires the character of a challenge cast before the man of today, to the believer of today, to understand more deeply the mystery of redemption, to let oneself be carried by this extraordinary movement of attraction toward the redemption, the reality of which is constantly verified in the Church as an institution, and must be applied, as,a charism, in the hour of grace which the Lord makes strike for each man in the important events of the Christian experience. It concerns a central spiritual movement, which from this moment must, be encouraged and prepared at the level, of the whole Church. Hence the necessity, to live this very important period intensely. The next jubilee, if it does not have the cystomary long-term preparation, will, nevertheless, find the Church ready for its celebration. The two encyclicals, Redemptor Hominis and Dives in Misericordia are concrete indications that, in a certain way, can already point out the way and give directions for the appropriate celebration of the event. Moreover, we are anticipating, at the level of the universal Church, the Synod of Bishops, which by singular coincidence will fall during the jubilee and will dedicated to the theme closely cofl nected with its concrete conten Reconciliation and Penance in thl Mission of the Church. The synod i now two years in preparation and a the episcopates of the world an therefore, already in full harmohj with the deep significance of thj Jubilee of Redemption. It is througk them that the whole Church is ah ready on the way toward the celebrai tipn of the event of grace and mercy V Christ came to save The approaching jubilee is iatended to make people more aware of the celebration of the redemptio,n which is continually commemoratefl and relived in the whole Church. Its specific purpose is to call to a mor* profound consideration of the event ^1 redemption and-its concrete applica tion in the Sacrament of Penance. * It appears then that the conten; is*already in clear evidence in the titji itself: Year of the Redemption. AJ the richness'of the Christian mysteryj; all the urgency of the Gospel message',! is contained in this word: redemp tion. 'The event of redemption i central in the history of salvation. R is all summarized here: Christ came to save us. He is the redeemer of man* Redemptor Hominis. For man who i searching for truth, justice, happif ness, beauty, goodness, without bein able to find them with his ow strength alone, and remains un' ssttisfied by the propositions that to day s immanentistic and material-^ istic ideologies offer him, and thu^ borders on the abyss of desperatiom

92 JUBILEE YEAR 145 and boredom or is paralyzed in sterile Ind self-destructive enjoyment of the ^nses, for man who bears in Mmself the imprint, in mind and lieart, of the image of God and feels ftis thirst for the absolute the only mswer is Christ. Christ comes to meet man in order to free him from tihe slavery of sin and to return his pristine dignity to him. Redemption summarizes the entire mystery of Christ and constitutes Ae fundamental mystery of Christian feith, the mystery of a God who is We and who revealed himself as love ra the gift of His son as a victim Wfered for our sins. " Redemption is the revelation of hue, it is the work of love, as I wrote in my first encyclical." The jubilee must, therefore, bring all Christians to the rediscovery of the mystery of We contained in the redemption and to a probing of the riches hidden for centuries in Christ in the burning fcmace of the Paschal Mystery. '! Furthermore, redemption not ally reveals God to man, but man to Kmself." This is a constitutive element of human history, because man is not fully himself if he does not live k the redemption which causes man to discover the deep roots of his ^rson, wounded by sin and its rending contradictions, but saved by God ii Christ, and brought to the state of liat perfect man who is Christ come kfull stature. " ) The Year of Redemption will ihus offer the opportunity of a renewed discovery of these consoling and transforming truths, and it will be the task of pastors of souls, of theological speculation, of pastoral work, of kerygma, to spread in the widest radius possible the news of salvation, in which is contained the essence of the Gospel: Christ is the only savior, since there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved. '" Call to repentance This objective reality of the mysteiy of redemption must become a subjective reality, proper to each one of the believers, in order to achieve its concrete effectiveness in the historical condition of the man who lives, suffers and works in this last part of the second millennium after Christ, which is now nearing its end. In this jubilee that intends to bring the mercy of God close to the misery of man, the strain toward grace must be renewed, the effort of consciences must be intensified in order to apply subjectively the gift of redemption, of that love flowing from the crucified and risen Christ. The Holy Year is, therefore, a call to repentance and to conversion, dispositions necessary for sharing in the grace of redemption. It is not man who redeems himself from his sins, but it is man who is redeemed by accepting the forgiveness acquired by the Redeemer. We want then to live V t/fi. 4:8-10. SeeRedemptorHominis,9. ' SeeGaudiumetSpes,22. "Eph.i:13. ' Acts ^-.12.

93 1 146 THE POPE-SPEAKS the mystery of redemptibh, drawing iiispiration from those great realities which were* the >m ain reasoli for mjl first encyclicals:jchrist)the Redeemer of man, Christ who reveals the Father, rich in mercy. Likewise the celebration of the synod Will facilitate the uhderstanding'of thid inestimable gift, disposing souls't*o apply themselves subjectively to the redemption: to live it through penance'and reconciliation, that is, in victory over moral evil, in the return to God, in conversion. As I wrote in Dives in Misericordia, Authentic- knowledge of the God of mercy, the God of tender love, is a 'constant dnd inexhaustible source of conversion, not only as a momentary interior *dct, but also as a perma-nent attitpde, as a state of mind.*'those'wh6 come to know God in this, way, who see Him in "this way, can Jive 6nly in a state of being continually converted -to Him. ''' It is necessary to'tediscover the sense of sin, the loss 'of 'which is connected with that more radical and secret'loss of-the sertse-o/ God. The Sacrament of Pena'n'ce is the sacrament of reconciliation with'god, the encounter of the misery of 'man with the mercy of God, personified in Christ the Redeemer and in the power o'f'the Church. Confession is a practicdl' exercise of faith in the evriht of redemption. The Sacrament bf Penance is,- therefore, rcproposed, through the jutiilee, as a testim onyof faith in the dynamic 'sandtity of "the Church, which makes saints of sinners. It is reproposed as a need of the ecclesii community, which is always woun di in its totality by every sin, even committed individually. It" reproposed as a purification in view the Eucharist, a consoling sign of th sacramental economy through whii man enters into direct and person contact with Christ, who died ar rose for him: who loved me and ga' himself-/or me. '* In all the sacn mentfe, beginning with Baptism, th interpersonal relationship is esta lished between Christ and man but is, above all, in Penance and in tl Eucharist that it is "revived throug out the whole spatr of human life ar becomes reality, possession, suppoi light; joy. Dilexit me (He loved me Suffering rooted in the mystery of sin There is yet a further meaning this Jubilee of Redemption. We are' living in a world whi suffers: So many men, our brothdi and sisters, have a very sad herita; of privation, of anxiety, of par which cannot leave anyone ind ferent. Now suffering has-its theologic^ and anthropological roots in the m; tery of sin, and for this reason is* constitutive element of this redem^ tion of Christ. There is nothing in tl world which corresponds to'hum suffering more than the cross Christ. Christ suffered His Passie taking dpon himself the sins of t] world. For our sakes God made hs who did not know sin to be sin, so tlfl '^Dives in Misericordia, 13. '<Gal. 2:20.

94 JUBILEE YEAR 147 him we might become the very liness of God. The Second Vatn Council, in presenting the dratic contradictions and hardships ich so gnaw at contemporary man th the enigmas and challenges they sent to his reason and sensitivity, shown in Christ, the New Man, in cross and resurrection, the only wer to man s dramatic questions ceming pain and death. The redemption opens to us the ificent book of our solidarity th the suffering Christ and, in Him, oduces us into the mystery of our idarity with our suffering brothers sisters. The Jubilee of Redempwill allow us to live more intenseh the spirit of the Communion of ints. Human sufferings are the mon lot of all: Each one has its I contribution to make to redempwhich, though it occurred once for all, needs this mysterious egration, the offering of this very vy burden which the evils and s of humanity are: Adimpleo: I plete in my flesh what is lacking e sufferings of Christ for the sake His body, the Church. If the rch today has mitigated many of traditional penitential practices, precisely because there is increasin the world, despite all appears, the number of those who are to do great Christian penance use their whole life is one great nee. I am thinking of the sick, oneliness of the aged, the anxiety arents for their children, the ouragement of the unemployed, the frustrations of so many youths who cannot find their place in society. I am thinking of those who suffer the violation of their rights through sometimes refined forms of persecution and, finally, of civil death. Well, then, the Jubilee of Redemption relates to the manifold and hidden Communion of Saints. It is true that the observance of every jubilee puts us in touch with the incomparable richness of the merits and sufferings which the martyrs and saints have gained throughout the course of the ancient and recent history of the Church, like a marvelous crown, with the gift of their life and their heroic fortitude; but always placing it in a greater light and this will certainly be a fundamental achievement of the approaching jubilee that the sufferings of our brothers and sisters, united to that of Christ, is a treasure on which the Church lives, and which sustains the faith of all. If there are inconveniences, inherent in the celebration of the jubilee, today they become minor compared with those of epochs, or even only of decades, ago. This must not let you forget that each one can and must bear his share of suffering which, like it or not, is linked with human existence and must be united, in Christ, with that of others. Today this solidarity in suffering is very much felt. There is a more accentuated love among Christians, between them and others beyond the confines of the Church. Responsi- 2Cor. 5:21. ' 'Gaudium etspes, 23. Cot 1:24.

95 148 THE POPEBPEAKS bility toward those who suffer involves one in forms which were not so intense before. The jubilee that is approaching will, therefore, make possible a further enrichment of this sensitivity which is more genuinely sensus Ecclesiae, in the increased kwafeness of that solidarity, of that Adimpleo. For the sake of all believers For all the reasons which I have mentioned, you realize that the celebration of redemption cannot be limited to Rome, as was the custom for other jubilees. The mystery of redemption is extended to all men. Therefore, this Holy See of Peter, faithful to its mandate, is concerned about all men.. The. jubilee is intended for the sake of all believers, wherever they live. Its purpose is to help them better understand the unfathomable riches of Christ, to enlighten all men on the mysterious design which for ages was hidden in God the creator of all. Nov.', therefore, through the Church God s manifold wisdom is made known. '" Certainly Rome, with its unique character, its apostolic memorials, its celebrations in the presence- of the pope and its age-old history of practical organization, welcomes all pilgrims. It does not, however, want to monopolize a treasure which belongs to everyone. It wants the jubilee to be celebrated with the same rights and with the same spiritual benefits in every local Church, in the whole world. The jubilee, therefore, will J celebrated simultaneously in whole Church, be it in Rome or in tl local churches, within the same y< This will nurture in believers sense of the universality of Church, its catholic mark. It propose to everyone that thej' li more intimately the message of demption, and the commitment conversion and spiritual rene which it involves, and which tl jubilee recalls with powerful suggi tion. The jubilee will be celebrat from March 25,1983, the Solemnity the Incarnation of the Lord, until E; ter Sunday, April 22,1984. The entire earthly life of Jesi was spent for redemption: Redemph hominis. Wherefore, on coming in the world, reads the Letter to tl Hebrews, Christ said: Sacrifice a: offering you did not desire, but a Uoi you have prepared for me.... Th< said: As is written of me in the b I have come to do your will, 0 G By this will we have been sanctifu through the offering of the body Jesus Christ once for all. ' Jes' lived in anticipation of His hour,! entrusted to Him by the Father: have come to light a fire on the eartli How I wish the blaze were ignited! I have a baptism to receive. What anguish I feel till it is over! Doinf the will of him who sent me an bringing his work to completion is my food. ' This work was supremely coilipleted on the cross: It is finished. 'Eph. 3:8ff. 'Heb. 10:5 fif., 10. Lft. 12:49. 'Jra. 4:34. ^Jn. 19:30.

96 JUBILEE YEAR 149 d the Father responded to this t holy oblation, making him Son God in power according to the rit of holiness, by his resurrection m the dead: Jesus Christ our From conception to resurrection, rist is Redeemer. We will then be e to go through every stage in the of the Savior to avail ourselves of fruits of His redemption. ice to ecumenism I greatly trust that also our thers who are not in complete munion with the Catholic Church nt to understand fully these values erent in the jubilee celebration -d look to it with more lively hope :d ecclesial love. The jubilee is a great service to cause of ecumenism. Celebrating redemption, we go beyond hisical misunderstandings and congent controversies, in order to t each other on the common und of our being Christian, that is, eemed. The redemption unites all us in the one love of Christ, cified and risen. This is, above all, most valid.meaning, in the light ecumenical action, that is to be buted to the coming jubilee. There also is another reason 'ch leads us to hope in this union of 'rts: The spirit of prayer and ance which pervades the jubilee bration must lead to that consion of heart which the Council hers have indicated as an essencondition for the restoration of unity in the Church: There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name, as is written in the decree on ecumenism, without interior conversion. For it is from newness of attitudes, from self-denial and unstinted love, that yearnings for unity take their rise and grow toward maturity. We should, therefore, pray to the Holy Spirit for the grace to be genuinely self-denying, humble and gentle in the service of others, and to have an attitude of brotherly generosity toward them. ^ Finally, then, I address a sincere appeal to all in responsible positions, and to the members of the other churches and ecclesial commimities, that they accompany the celebrations of the Year of Redemption with their prayer, with their faith in Christ the Redeemer, with their love that may become with us an ever more deeply felt yearning, to fulfill the prayer of Jesus before His redemptive passion: That they all may be one. ^'' Better understanding In closing, I wish the jubilee to be a general eatechesis, a detailed evangelization at the level of all the local churches, concerning the reality of redemption: Christ who saves man by His love immolated on the cross. Man who lets himself be saved by Christ. It is an invitation to uftderstand better the mystery of salvation and to live it to the depths.in the praxis of the sacramental life. In this action which brings us to Christ, in order to have us rediscover ^'Rom. 1:4. "Unitatis Redintegratio, 7. Jn. 17:21.

97 150 thepopespeaks the Father in Him, the silent and persuasive action of the Holy Spirit will be emphasized and will invite us to an ever greater docility and abandonment to His gifts, that'the work of salvation, in which He directly intervenes, attain in each believer its effective realization. Thus, will be attained the primary and principal purpose of the jubilee, which aims above all for the interior and^piritual growth of man, but for. this very reason, also contributes.to the active love between peoples. In effect, only Christ is our peace God was reconciling the wjdrld to himself, not counting men s transgressions against them, and entrusting* the message of reconciliation to us. The theme of reconciliation, therefore, is closely connected with that of peace, of the victory over sin, which must be reflected in the victory of love over 'enmity, rivalry,- hostility among peoples, as in the victory of love within «the individual civic communities and, more intimately still, in the heart of every single man. Work on behalf of peacp is a special form of fidelity to the.mystery of redemption because peace is the irradiation of redemption, its application in the concrete life of men and natibns. ).The jubilee will contribute to consolidating a mentality of peace in the world: it is the desire that springs from the heart. From this moment I entrust this program to the intercession of Mary Most Holy. She is the vertex of redemption. She is indissoluls joined to this work, because she Mother of the Redeemer and the mfl sublime fruit of redemption. She is fact the first redeemed, precisely view of the merits of Christ, Son] God and her son. The Church will have to lo more intensely at her who embods in herself that model which tf Church itself hopes and expects to 1 a glorious Church, holy and in maculate, without stain. The Jubilee of Redemption,^ eludes then an eminently Maril aspect: The coincidence of the cef bration which falls in anticipation] the third millennium leads us understand that Advent mental^ which singles out the presence Mary in the whole history of salv tion. She, as the Morning Star precedes Christ and prepares Hifi receives Him in herself and gives Hi to the world: and also in the prepa^ tion of this jubilee we believe in ' and know she is present to dispose o hearts for the great event. To all this her maternal rc assigns her: As it was stated Vatican II, in an utterly singull way she cooperated by her obedienci faith, hope and burning charity in tm Savior s work of restoring supm natural life to souls: and therefoffl she still continues by her materni charity to care for the brethren of Hi Son who still journey on earth sva rounded by dangers and difficultie until they are led to their happ 'Eph. 2:14. "2 Cor. 5:19. ^ Eph. 5:27. ^'Lumen Gentium, 61.

98 JUBILEE YEAR 151 herland. ^"She is a mother in the 'er of grace. - ' In a few days, she 1show us the Incarnate Word, on ch she fixed her interior gaze editating on all these things in her rt 32 Therefore, our prayer rises to that she show again to the whole urch, indeed to all of humanity, t Jesus who is the blessed.fruit of womb, and who is the Redeemer 4j11. mulgation of jcode Venerable Brothers and beloved See how much I ardently desired communicate to you and to the ole Church, as we are about to iye the mystery of Christmas, ich is the dawn of redemption. In t, upon the extreme poverty of hlehem there is already projected shadow of the cross. May Mary be always beside us. y Michael the Archangel, St. John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul and all the other apostles beg for us the ever more abundant gift of salvation, for the worthy and fruitful celebration of the jubilee, and dispose the whole Church to live that great event. May they prepare it to welcome the redemption of Christ in its fullness. From here, to the whole Church I cry, Open the doors to the Redeemer! I wish to add that as of Jan. 25, 1983, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, the new Code of Canon Law will be promulgated. As you know, January 25, 1959, Pope John XXin, in the announcement of the proposal to convoke the Second Vatican Council, expressed also the desire to revise and update ecclesiastical legislation in order "to render it an effective and useful instrument of that same council in the sphere of discipline in the life of the Church. /6id.,62. 76iU, 61. SeeLfe. 2:19,51. w i jf*

99 Aperite portas Open the Doors to the R edeem er Papal Bull of Pope John Paul II Proclaiming the Holy Year of Redemption (January 6, 1983) ^ ^ O V j/ deemer. As we look forward to the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, this is the call that I address to the whole Church, renewing th e invitation that I expressed on the morrow of my election to the See of Peter. From that moment my feelings and thoughts have been more than ever directed toward Christ the Redeemer and to His paschal mystery, which is the summit of divine revelation and the supreme manifestation of God s mercy to the people of every age.' In fact, the universal ministry which belongs to the Bishop of Rome takes its origin from the event of thb redemption accomplished by Christ by His death and resurrection; and by the same Redeemer it has been put at the service of that same event," which occupies the central place in tl whole history of salvation." * It is true to say that every htur cal year is the celebration df mystery of our redemption. But jubilee anniversary of the savideath of Christ suggests that t celebration should be lived in a md intense way. In 1933 Pope Pius XI venerable memory by a happy spiration decreed that the 19th ce tenary of the redemption should celebrated by an extraordinary yed without going into the question of 1 exact date of the Lord s crucifixion SingQ in the present year 19 fhete ocdtirs the 1,950th anniversal» of that supreme event, I came to i decision, already manifested to College of Cardinals November 1982, to devote a whole year to 152

100 OPEN THE DOORS 153 I commemoration of the reion, so that this event might etrate more deeply into the ght and action of the whole wrch. 1 This jubilee will begin March 25 the solemnity of the Annunciaw of the Lord, which recalls the idential moment when the nal Word, becoming man ugh the power of the Holy Spirit! the*womb of the Virgin Mary, iame a sharer in our flesh, that ugh death he might destroy him has the power of death, that is, devil, and deliver all those who ugh fear of death were subject to ong bondage. '^It will end April 1984, leaster Sunday, the day of fullness of the joy obtained by the eming sacrifice of Christ, through ch the Church is ever wonderreborn and nourished. Let this,-therefore, be a year that uly holy. Let it be a time of grace salvation, by being more intensenctified by the acceptance of the es of the redemption on the part he people of our time, through a tual renewal of the whole People od, which has for its head Christ, 0 wps put to death for our treses* and raised for,our justifion. The Church s whole life is im mersed in the redemption and breathes the redemption. To redeem us Christ came into the world from the bosom of the Father; to redeem us He offered himself on the cross in an act of supreme love for humanity, leaving to His Church His body and blood in remembrance of him, "and making it the minister of reconciliation with the power of remitting sins." The redemption is communicated to man through the proclamation of the Word of God and through the sacraments, in that divine economy whereby the Church is constituted, as the Body of Christ, as t h e. universal sacrament of salvation. '" Baptism, the sacrament of new birth in Christ, introduces the faithful into this life-giving stream which flows from the Savior. Confirmation more closely binds them to the Church and strengthens them in their witness to Christ and in consistent love for God and the brethren. The (Eucharist in particular makes present the whole work of the redemption, which, in the course of the year, is perpetuated in the celebration of the divine mysteries. In the Eucharist the Redeemer himself, really present under the sacred speci- Homily at the inauguration of the pontificate: i4as 70 (1978), 949; encyclical Re'demptor inis, 2: AAS 71 (1979), 259 ff.; encyclical Diues in Misericordia, 1-.AAS12 (1980), 'SeeMf. 16:17-19; 28: See Gal. 4:4-6. Bull Quod Nuper: 4^45 25 (1933), 6. *Heb. 2:14 ff. Roman Missal, Easter Sunday Mass, Prayer over the Gifts. Rom. 4:25. SeeLfe. 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24 ff. SeeJn. 20:23; 2 Cor. 5:18 ff. '"Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gen-

101 154 THE POPE SPEAKS 'S; es, gives himself to the faithful, bringing them ever closer to that love which is more powerful than sin. " He unites them to himself and, at the same time, unites them with one another. In this way the Eucharist builds up the Church,,for it is the sign and cause of the unity of the People of God, and, therefore, the source and summit of all Christian life.'^ Penance purifies them, as will be said more fully further on. Holy Orders make the chosen ones more like Christ, the Eternal High Priest, and confers upon them the power to feed the Church in His name with the word and grace of God, especially in eucharistic worship. In Matrimony, authentic married love is> caught up into divine love and is directed and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific action of the Church. '^ Finally, the Anointing of the Sick, which unites the sufferings of the faithful with the sufferings of the Redeemer, purifies them for the complete redemption of man also in this body, and prepares them for the beatifying meetingi with God, One and Three. In addition, the various elements of Christian religious practice, in particular those which go under the name of sacramentals, as also the expressions of spontaneous popular piety, which likewise draw their effectiveness from the riches which co tihually flow from Christ the deemer s death on the cross and fro His resurrection, help the faithful ] have an ever-renewed and life-givii contact with the Lord. Therefore, since the whole acti^ ty of the Church is marked by transforming power of Christ s demption and continually draws fra these springs of salvation," it is vious that the Jubilee of the RedemI tion as I said to the Sacred Colle last December 23 must be no other than an ordinary year ce brated in an extraordinary way: possession of the grace of the reder tion, which is ordinarily lived in through the very structure of Church, becomes something extra^ dinary through the special natufe the celebration which has be decreed. '' In this way, the Churcl life and activity take on, this year jubilee nature: the* year of redeihption should leave a spec imprint on the Church s whole life, that Christians mdy learn to discover in their daily experience ; the riches of the salvation whichi communicated to them from the tin of their baptism. May they also themselves impelled by the love' Christ to the thought that one died for all; therefore all have die And He died for all, that those "Pope John Paul II, encyclical Dives in Miseriordia, 13: AAS 72 (1980), "Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Ga tium, 11. ' 'Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Mode World, Gaudium et Spes, 48. "See Is. 12:3. Address to the cardinals and the members of the Roman curia, 3: L Osservatore Roman December 24,1982.

102 OPEN THE DOORS 155 Ilive might no longer live for themsdves but for Him who for their sake Iied and was raised. ' Since the Church is the dispenser of the maniald grace of God, and if it attributes ^to this year a specific meaning, then j die divine economy of salvation will he actuated in the various forms in which this Jubilee Year of the Redemption will manifest itself. All the above gives this event a dearly pastoral character. The profound meaning and hidden beauty of iris year which the Lord enables us to celebrate is to be seen in the rediscdvery and lived practice of the sacramental economy of the Church, through which the grace of God in Christ reaches individuals and communities. Furthermore, it must be clear iiat this special time, when all Chris-, dans are called upon to realize more, profoundly their vocation to reconcilfetion-with the Father in the Son, will rnily reach its full achievement if it l^ds to a fresh commitment by each ssd every person to the service of seconciliation, not only among all the ifeciples of Christ but also among all men and women. It also must lead to ffresh commitment to the service of fteace among all peoples. A faith and a life which are authentically Chris- San cannot fail to blossom in a love which constitutes truth and promotes justice. The extraordinary jubilee cele- bration of the redemption is intended, first of all, to revive in the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church the awareness that their privileged condition is not attributed to their own merits, but to a special grace of Christ. If they fail to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved, but they shall be the more severely judged. ' Consequently, every baptized person must, above all, be aware of being called to a particular commitment to penance and renewal, since this is the permanent state of the Church, which at once holy and always in need of purification, never ceases to do penance and to be renewed, '" as it follows the invitation which Christ addressed to the crowds at the beginning of His ministry: Repent, and believe in the Gospel. '" In this specific commitment, the year which we are about to celebrate follows the same line as the 1975 Holy Year in which my venerable predecessor Paul VI called for renewal in Christ and reconciliation with God."" Surely there is no spiritual renewal which does not pass through penance and conversion, both as the interior and permanent attitude of the believer and as the practice of virtue which responds to the invitation of the Apostle Paul to be reconciled with God, "' and also as the means of "2 Cor. 5:14ff. ' Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gen- \ tium, 14. "Ibid., 8. '^Mk. 1:15. See bull Apostolorum Limina, I: AAS 66 (1974), 292 ff. "See 2 Cor. 5:20.

103 156 THE POPE SPEAKS «f obtaining God s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Penance. It is, in fact, 9 requirement of one s very condition in the CJiurch that, every Catholic should leave nothing.undone to, remain, in the life of grace and should do everything to avoid fallin,g into sin, in order always to be able to share in the Body, and Blood of the Lord and, thus, to be of assistance to the whole Church in one s own personal sanctification and in the ever more sincere commitment to,tl^e Jjord s service. Freedom from sin, therefore, is a fruit and ja primary requirement of fqith in Christ the Redeemer and faith in His Church Christ who set us free that we might remain free^^ and mjght share thq gift of His sacramental Body for the building up of His eqclesial body. At the service of this freedom, the Lord Jesus instituted in the Church the Sacrament of Penance, so that those who have committed sin after Baptism n^ay be reconciled with Gqd whom they have-offended, and with, the Church, whjch they have wounded. The universal call to conversion fits precisely into this context-. Since all are sinners, all need that radical change pf spirit, mind and life which the Bible calls metanoia, conversion. This attitude is created and fostered by the Word of God the revelation of the Lord s mercy is actuatej above all, by sacramental means, an i?. manifested in numerous forms charity and fraternal service. In order to return to the state grace, in ordinary circumstances it not sufficient internally to acknow edge one s guilt and to make exte reparation for it.- Christ the deemer, in founding the Church a: making it the universal sacrament salvation, established that ti salvation of the individual shou come about within the Church a: through the ministry.of the Chun that same Church which God all uses in order to communicate t] beginning of salvation, which faith.. It is true.that the ways of,tl Lord are inscrutable and that t njystery of encountering God in oni conscience remains unfqthomab but the way which Christ m known to us is through the Ch which, by means of the sacrament^ at least the desire for it, establishes a new personal,con between the sinner and the u deemer. This life-giving contact shown also in the sign of sacramen absolution,.whereby Christ who f( gives, in the person of His ministj reaches 'as an individual the pen who needs to be forgiven, enlivens in that person the convict: of faith,, on which every other con\?: tion depends: faith in the Son See Gal. 5:1. See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, LumeMi Gentium, 11; Ordo Paenitentiae, no. 2. See Mk. 1:15; Lk. 13:3-5. See Mk. 1:15. See Ordo Paenitentiae, no. 46. See Second.Vatican Ecumenical Council,.Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lu. Gentium, 11; Ecumenical Council of Trent, Session VI De Justificatione, Cap. 8: D S 1532.

104 OPEN THE DOORS 157, who has loved me and has given ^mself for me. *" Every rediscovered conviction of fc merciful love of God and every Wvidual response of repentant love man is always an ecclesial event, the power proper to the sacra- ^nt, as a sharing in the merits and infinite satisfying value of the ^od of Christ, our one Redeemer, added the merits and satisfacs of all those who, sanctified in f c s t Jesus and faithful to the call to p holy,' offer their joys and prayers, Ovations and sufferings on behalf of r brothers and sisters in the faith are most in need for forgiveness,, indeed, for the sake of the whole y.of Christ which is the Church.^ In consequence, the practice of amental confession, in the conof the Communion of Saints ich contributes in different ways to ging people close to Christ, ' is an of faith in the Mystery of Reption and of its realization in the ch. The celebration of sacraital penance is, in fact, always an of the Church, whereby it pros its faith, gives thanks to God e liberty with which Christ has a free, offers its life as a spiritual ifice to the praise of the glory of while it hastens its steps toward it the Lord. It-is a demand of the very mysof Redemption that the ministry of reconciliation, entrusted by (iod to the Shepherds of the Church, should find its natural accomplishment in the Sacrament of Penance. Those responsible for it are the bishops, who in the Church are the stewards of the grace deriving from the priesthood of Christ, the priesthood which He shares with His' ministers, also in their role as guardians of the penitential discipline. Also responsible for it are the priests, who are able to unite themselves to the intention and charity of Christ, in particular by administering the Sacrament of Penance. ^ With these considerations I feel closely united to the pastoral concerns of all my brothers in the episcopate. In this regard it is extremely significant that the Synod of Bishops, which will be celebrated in this Jubilee Year of the Redemption, has precisely as its theme Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church. Certainly the fathers of the synod will, together with me, devote particular attention to the irreplaceable role of the Sacrament of Penance* in this saving mission of the Church, and they will make every effort to ensure that nothing is omitted which serves to build up the Body of Christ. -'' It is our most ardent shared desire that, in this Year of the Redemption, the number of straying :^Gal See i Cor. 1:2. See Gat 6:10; Co/. 1:24. i "See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen um, 50. fsee2 Cor. 5:18. - See 1 Pt. 4:10. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gen- % 26; Decree on the Priestly Life and Ministry, Presbyterorum Ordinis, 13. See p/i. 4:12.

105 158 THE POPE SPEAKS sheep may diminish andt that all might return to the Father who awaits them and to Christ the shepherd and guardian of all souls? As-it.draws near, in fact, to the beginning of its third millennium, the Church feels particularly committed to fidelity to the divine gifts, which haye their source in the Redemption qf Christ and by means of which the Holy Spirit guides it toward development and renewal, so that it may become an ever more worthy bride of its Lord. For this reason it trusts in the Holy Spirit, and with His mysterious action it wishes to associate itself as the bride who invokes the coming of Christ. The specific grace of the Year of the Redeipption is, therefore, a renewed discovery of the love of God who gives himself, and a deeper realization of the inscrutable riches of the paschal mystery of Christ, gained through the daily experience of Christian life in all its forms. The various practices of this Jubilee Year should be directed toward this grace, with a continual effort which presupposes and requires detachment from sin, from the mentality of the world which lies in the power of the evil one, " and from «11 that impedes or slows down the process of conversion. In this perspective of grace is also situated the gift -of the indulgence, proper to and characteristic of the Jubilee Year, which the Church, by virtue pf the power conferred upon by Christ, offers to all those who, the above-mentioned dispositioi fulfill the appropriate prescriptions the jubilee. As my predecessor Pi VI emphasized in the Bull of Ini tion of the Holy Year of 1975, means of the indulgence, the Chun making use of its power as the mi) ter of the Redemption of Christ Lord, communicates to the faithful sharing in this fullness of Christ the Communion of Saints, providii them with ample means salvation. The Church, the dispenser grace through the express will of founder, grants to all the faithful possibility of access, through the dulgence, to the total gift of Goj mercy, but it requires that there complete openness and the necessi interior purification, for the dulgence is inseparable from power of Sacrament of Penanci have great confidence that with jubilee there may be refined in faithful the gift of the fear of G( given by the Holy Spirit who, in delicacy of His love, leads them more to avoid sin and to seek to mj reparation for it, for themselves for others, by the acceptance of di sufferings as also by the varii jubilee practices. It is necessary rediscover the sense of sin, arid accomplish this it is necessary rediscover the sense of God! Sin is, See Lk. 15:20. "See / Pt. 2:25. See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lun Gentium, 9,12. See Rev. 22:17. " 1 1 Jn. 5:19. "^\xw Apostolorum Limina, II: AAS 66 (1974), 295.

106 OPEN THE DOORS 159 an-offense committed against a and merciful God, an offense requires suitable expiation in life or in the next. How can we to remember the salutary ad- 'tion; The Lord will judge his le. It is a fearful thing to fall into ands of the living God?^'^ To this renewed consciousness of and of its consequences there d correspond a reevaluation of Te of grace, in which the Church rejoice as a fresh gift of Redempfrom its crucified and risen Lord, this is directed that eminently ral intention of the jubilee, of I have already spoken. The whole Church, therefore, the bishops to the least and blest of the faithful, feels itself d to live this past period of the century of the Redemption in a al and deepened Spirit of Adwhich will prepare it for the "caching third millennium with 'aiqe sentiments with which the n Mary awaited the birth of the in the humility of our human e. As Mary preceded the Church Th and in love at the dawn of the of Redemption, so today may she de the Church in this jubilee, as "oes forward toward the new enriium of Redemption. More than ever in this new seaof its history, the Church exalts admires in Mary the most excellent fruit of the Redemption, and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless model, that which it itself wholly desires and hopes to be ;^ in Mary it recognizes, venerates and invokes the first redeemed and, at the same time, the first to be associated so closely to the work of Redemption. The whole Church should, therefore, seek to concentrate, as Mary did, with undivided love on Jesus Christ its Lord, bearing witness by teaching and life that nothing is possible without Him, since in no other can there be salvation. And as Mary by consenting to the divine Word became the Mother of Jesus, and totally consecrated herself to the person and work of her Son, thus serving the mystery of Redemption,'*'* so the Chutch should proclaim today and always, that it knows nothing, among men, except Jesus Christ crucified, who has become for us our wisdom, justification, sanctification and'redemption.'"* By this witness to Christ the Redeemper, the Church too, like Mary, can light the flame of a new hope for the whole world. During this Jubilee Year of the Redemption, which we know has been accomplished once and for all but which needs to be applied and exr panded for the increase of a universal sanctification which must ever be perfected. I fervently hope for a re- 10:30 ff. "Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on-the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum cilium, 103. "SeeJn. 15:5; itcts 4:12. "See Gogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 56. "See 1 Cor. 1:30:2:2.

107 160 THE POPE SPEAKS ciprocal harmony of 'intent in all those who believe in Christ: including those of our brothers and sisters who are in real, if not full, communion with us since they are united in faith in the incarnate Son of God, our Redeemer and Lord, and united in a common Baptism/? * 'In fact, all those who have responded to th e divine election by obedien'ce to Jesus Christ, by being sprinkled with His blood and becoming sharers in His Resurrection," believe that redemption from the slavery of sin is the fulfillment of the whole of divine Revelation, because in it there comes to pass what-no creatpre could ever have thought or done: that the immortal God in Christ immolated himself on the cross for man and mortal hurtianity rose again in Him. They believe that the 'Redemption is dhe supreme exaltation of man, since it makes him die to sin in order to make him a sharer in the very life of God: They believe that all human existence and the while history of humanity receive fullness of meaning only from the unshakable certainty that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. " 'May the renewed experience of this one faith, also during this Jubilee Year, "hasten the day of ineffable joy when the brothers and sisters will live in unity, listening to the voice Christ in His single flock, with as the one supreme shepherd. In^ meantime we have the joy of know that many of them are this y preparing to celebrate, in a partii larly significant way, Jesus Chris the life of the world. I wish succe their initatives, and I pray the Lon bless them. But obviously the celebratio the Jubilee Year mainly concerns sons and daughters of the Chd: who fully share its faith in Christ Redeemer and live in full commu with it. As I have already announc the Jubilee Year will be simul ously celebrated in Rome and in the dioceses of the world. ' For g ing the spiritual benefits connecl with the jubilee, I will now give, a from certain directives, only s general guidelines. The task of nil concrete pastoral regulations ^ suggestions I leave to the episc conferences and to the bishops of individual dioceses, in accord with local attitudes and custom well as with the objectives of 1,950th anniversary of Christ s d and resurrection. The celebratio this event is intended above all call to repentance and conversio necessary dispositions for sharin the grace of the Redemption w' He achieved, and thus for brin aboub'a spiritual renewal of indr uals, families, parishes and dioces 2. "See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, S e e /P t. 1:1 ff.; Col. 3:1. *yn3:16. SeePs. 133 (132):1; Jn. 10:16. 'Address to the Cardinals and the members of the Roman Curia, 3: L Osservatore Rom December 24,1982.

108 OPEN THE DOORS 161 religious communities and the othcenters of Christian life and aposto- My principal wish is that funmental importance be given to the 0 main conditions required for ming a plenary indulgence, namely dividual and complete sacramental fession, wherein takes place the.counter between man s misery and d s mercy, and the worthy recepn of Eucharistic Communion. In this regard I exhort all priests 6ffer to the faithful, with generous ailahility and self-dedication, the ximum opportunity to make use of means of salvation. And, in order, facilitate the task of confessors, I down that priests who accompany jqin jubilee pilgrimages outside ir own diocese can make use of the me faculties as they have received their own diocese from the legitate authority. The Sacred Apostol- Penitentiary will in due course nt special- faculties to the censors of the Patriarchal Basilicas in me and, in a certain* measure, also all other priests who hear the nfessions of the faithful who apoach the Sacrament of Penance 'th the intention of gaining the bilee indulgence. Interpreting the Church s mater- 1 sentiments, I decree that the bilee indulgence may be gained by oosing one of the following ways, ich will be at the same time an pression of, and a renewed commitmt to, exemplary ecclesial living: A By devoutly taking part in a community celebration organized on the diocesan level or, if in accordance with the regulations laid down by the bishop, also in individual parishes, for gaining the jubilee indulgence. These celebrations must always include a prayer for my intentions, in particular that the event of the Redemption may be proclaimed to all peoples, and that in every nation those who believe in Christ the Redeemer may be able freely to profess their faith. It is to be hoped that the celebration will be accompanied, as far as possible, by a work of mercy, in which the penitent will pursue and express his or her commitment to conversion. The community act may consist, in a special way: In taking part in a Mass celebrated fon the jubilee. Bishops will insure that in their dioceses the faithful are given ample opportunity to take part in it, and that the celebration is dignified and well prepared. When the liturgical norms allow, the choice of one of the following Masses is recommended: for reconciliation, for the remission of sins, for seeking the grace of charity, for promoting harmony, of the Mystery of the Holy Cross, of the Most Holy Eucharist, of the Most Precious Blood, the texts of which are found in the Roman Missal; one of the two Eucharistic Prayers for reconciliation also may be used. Or in being present at a Celebration of the Word, which can

109 162 THE POPE SPEAKS be an adaptation or extension of the Office of Readings, or at Morning or Everting Prayer, as long as they are celebrated specifically for the jubilee; Or in taking parttn a penitential service arranged for gaining the jubilee indulgence, concluding with the individual confession of the participants, according-to the Rite of Penance (second formula). Or in the solemn administration of Baptism or of -other sacraments (for example Confirmation, or the Anointing of the Sick intra Eucharistiam ). * Or in the pious exercise of the Stations of the Cross, organized for the gaining of <the jubilee indulgence. Diocesan bishops also may decree that the jubilee indulgence can be gained by taking part in a parish mission organizecf in connection with the Jubilee Year; or by taking part in days of spiritual retreat organized for groups* or categories of persons. Obviously, in these cases a prayer-for the pope s intentions must not be omitted. B By visiting either individually, or better still, as a family one of the churches or places indicated below and spending some time there in meditation, renewing one s faith by the recitation of the Creed -and the Our Father, and praying for my intentions, as already indicated^ As regards churches and places, I make the following disposition: a) In Rome,-a visit must be made to one of the four Patriarchal Basi icas (St. John Lateran, St. Peter s the Vatican, St. Paul s Outside f Walls, St. Mary Major), or to one the catacombs or to the Basilica Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. The special committee for til Jubilee Year, also in collaboratid with the Diocese of Rome, will pre pare a coordinated and continuoiii program of liturgical celebrations with proper religious and spiritu^ care of pilgrims. sj b) In the other dioceses of t/j world, the jubilee indulgence may bi gained by visiting one of the church^ which the bishop will decide. In th: selection, in which the cathedn church will naturally take first plar bishops will keep in* mind the needs the faithful. They also will bear mind the fittingness of preserving^ ] far as possible,' the sense of {3i grimage, which in its symbolism e presses the need, the search, at tim the holy anxiety of the soul whi* yearns to- establish or reestablish f] bond with God the Father, with the Son, the Redeemer of manki: and with' the Holy Spirit who effi salvation in the h uman heart. Those who, for reasons of heal cannot visit one of the churches dicated by the lochl bishop, can gi the jubilee indulgence by d visit their own parish church. For the prevented from making such a vi it is enough that they join spiritui in the act for gaining the jiib! indrtlgence made by members Of t own family or by their parish, offeri their prayers and sufferings to Go similar concession is granted to

110 OPEN THE DOORS 163 dents of old people s homes and to oners, all of whom shall be given cial pastoral attention in the light hrist the Redeemer of all human- Cloistered religious men and en can obtain the jubilee ingehce in their own monastery or vent churches. During the Jubilee Year, other ulgences granted remain in force, wever, the norm that only one nary indulgence can be gained h day will still hold. All ingences can always be applied to faithful departed. May the holy door, which I shall nin the Vatican basilica March 25 t, be a sign and symbol of new ess to Christ, the Redeemer of anity, who calls all men and en without exception to a better derstanding of the mystery of Reption and invites them to share it fruits, especially by means of Sacrament of Penance. A special rite of prayer and ance may be celebrated by the hops of the whole world in their cathedrals, on the same day or on ate immediately following, in orthat, at the solemn beginning of jubilee, the entire episcopate of the five continents, with their priests and faithful, may manifest their spiritual union with the Successor of Peter. I cordially invite my brothers in the episcopate, all priests and Religjous and all the faithful to live intensely and to promote the living of this year of grace. I implore Mary Most Holy, Mother of the Redeeiner and Mother of the Church, to intercede for us and to obtain for us the grace of a fruitful celebration of the Jubilee Year, 20 years after the Second Vatican Council. May she show again to the whole Church, indeed to all of humanity, the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus, who is the Redeemer of each and every one. Into her hands and to her maternal heart I commend the success of this Jubilee celebration. It is my desire that this letter have full effect throughout the Church and that it be observed notwithstanding any disposition to the' contrary. Given in Rome, at Saint Peter s, on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, January 6, 1983, the fifth year of my pontificate. Pope John Paul II See Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, Normae de Indulgentiis, no. 24,1. SeeIbid., loc. cit., no. 4. See 1 Tim. 2:4. Address to the Second College and to the Roman Prelature, 11: L'Osservatore Romano, Debar 24,1982.

111 READINGS FOR SESSION 3

112 Holy Mass at Brzezinka Concentration Camp, Homily of John Paul... APOSTOLIC PILGRIMAGE TO POLAND HOLY MASS AT THE BRZEZINKA CONCENTRATION CAMP HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II Brzezinka, 7 June "This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith" (1 Jn 5:4). These words from the Letter of Saint John come to my mind and enter my heart as I find myself in this place in which a special victory was won through faith; through the faith that gives rise to love of God and of one's neighbour, the unique love, the supreme love that is ready to "lay down (one's) life for (one's) friends" (Jn 15:13; cf. 10:11). A victory, therefore, through love enlivened by faith to the extreme point of the final definitive witness. This victory through faith and love was won in this place by a man whose first name is Maximilian Mary. Surname: Kolbe. Profession (as registered in the books of the concentration camp): Catholic priest. Vocation: a son of Saint Francis. Birth: a son of simple, hardworking devout parents, who were weavers near Lódz. By God's grace and the Church's judgment: Blessed. The victory through faith and love was won by him in this place, which was built for the negation of faith faith in God and faith in man and to trample radically not only on love but on all signs of human dignity, of humanity. A place built on hatred and on contempt for man in the name of a crazed ideology. A place built on cruelty. On the entrance gate which still exists, is placed the inscription "Arbeit macht frei", which has a sardonic sound, since its meaning was radically contradicted by what took place within. In this site of the terrible slaughter that brought death to four million people of different nations, Father Maximilian voluntarily offered himself for death in the starvation bunker for a brother, and so won a spiritual victory like that of Christ himself. This brother still lives today in the land of Poland. But was Father Maximilian Kolbe the only one? Certainly he won a victory that was immediately felt by his companions in captivity and is still felt today by the Church and the world. However, there is no doubt that many other similar victories were won. I am thinking, for example, of the death in the gas chamber of a concentration camp of the Carmelite Sister Benedicta of the Cross, whose name in the world was Edith Stein, who was an illustrious pupil of Husserl and became one of the glories of contemporary German philosophy, and who was a descendant of a Jewish family living in Wrocklaw. Where the dignity of man was so horribly trampled on, victory was won through faith and love. Can it still be a surprise to anyone that the Pope born and brought up in this land, the Pope who came to the see of Saint Peter from the diocese in whose territory is situated the camp of Oswiecim, should have begun his first Encyclical with the words "Redemptor Hominis" and should have dedicated it as a whole to the cause of man, to the dignity of man to the threats to him, and finally to his inalienable rights that can so easily be trampled on and annihilated by his fellowmen? Is it enough to put man in a different uniform, arm him with the apparatus of violence? Is it enough to impose on him an ideology in which human rights are subjected to the demands of the system, completely subjected to them, so as in practice not to exist at all? 2. I am here today as a pilgrim. It is well known that I have been here many times. So many times! And many times I have gone down to Maximilian Kolbe's death cell and stopped in front of the execution wall and passed among the ruins of the cremation furnaces of 1 of 3 5/26/10 4:26 PM

113 Holy Mass at Brzezinka Concentration Camp, Homily of John Paul... Brzezinka. It was impossible for me not to come here as Pope. I have come then to this special shrine, the birthplace, I can say, of the patron of our difficult century, just as nine centuries ago Skalka was the place of the birth under the sword of Saint Stanislaus, Patron of the Poles. I have come to pray with all of you who have come here today and with the whole of Poland and the whole of Europe. Christ wishes that I who have become the Successor of Peter should give witness before the world to what constitutes the greatness and the misery of contemporary man, to what is his defeat and his victory. I have come and I kneel on this Golgotha of the modern world, on these tombs, largely nameless like the great tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I kneel before all the inscriptions that come one after another bearing the memory of the victims of Oswiecim in languages: Polish, English, Bulgariam, Romany, Czech, Danish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish, Flemish, Serbo-Croat, German, Norwegian, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian. In particular I pause with you, dear participants in this encounter, before the inscription in Hebrew. This inscription awakens the memory of the People whose sons and daughters were intended for total extermination. This People draws its origin from Abraham, our father in faith (cf. Rom 4:12), as was expressed by Paul of Tarsus. The very people that received from God the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", itself experienced in a special measure what is meant by killing. It is not permissible for anyone to pass by this inscription with indifference. Finally, the last inscription: that in Polish. Six million Poles lost their lives during the second world war: a fifth of the nation. Yet another stage in the centuries-old fight of this nation, my nation, for its fundamental rights among the peoples of Europe. Yet another loud cry for the right to a place of its own on the map of Europe. Yet another painful reckoning with the conscience of mankind. -3. Oswiecim is such a reckoning. It is impossible merely to visit it. It is necessary on this occasion to think with fear of how far hatred can go, how far man's destruction of man can go, how far cruelty can go. Oswiecim is a testimony of war. War brings with it a disproportionate growth of hatred, destruction and cruelty. It cannot be denied that it also manifests new capabilities of human courage, heroism and patriotism, but the fact remains that it is the reckoning of the losses that prevails. That reckoning prevails more and more, since each day sees an increase in the destructive capacity of the weapons invented by modern technology. Not only those who directly bring about wars are responsible for them, but also those who fail to do all they can to prevent them. Therefore I would like to repeat in this place the words that Paul VI pronounced before the United Nations Organizations: "It is enough to remember that the blood of millions of men, numberless and unprecedented sufferings, useless slaughter and frightful ruin, are the sanction of the covenant which unites you in a solemn pledge which must change the future history of the world: No more war, war never again. It is peace, peace which must guide the destinies of peoples and of all mankind" (AAS 57, 1965, P. 881). If however Oswiecim's great call and the cry of man tortured here is to bear fruit for Europe and for the world also, the Declaration of Human Rights must have all its just consequences drawn from it, as John XXIII urged in the encyclical Pacem in Terris. For the Declaration is "a solemn recognition of the personal dignity of every human being; an assertion of everyone's right to be free to seek out the truth, to follow moral principles, discharge the duties imposed by justice, and lead a fully human life. It also recognized other rights connected with these" (John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, IV - 4,4S 55, 1963, pp ). There must be a return to the wisdom of the old teacher Pawel Wlodkowic, Rector of the Jagellonian University at Krakow, and the rights of nations must be ensured: their right to existence, to freedom, to independence, to their own culture, and to honourable development. Wlodkowic wrote: "Where power is more at work than love, people seek their own interests and not those of Jesus Christ, and accordingly they easily depart from the rule of God's law... All the kinds of law are against those who threaten people wishing to live in peace: against them is the civil law... the canon law... the natural law, expressed in the principle 'Do to others what you would have done to you'. Against them is the divine law, in that... the 2 of 3 5/26/10 4:26 PM

114 Holy Mass at Brzezinka Concentration Camp, Homily of John Paul... commandment 'Thou shalt not steal' forbids all robbery, and the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' forbids all violence (Pawel Wlodkowic, Saevientibus (1415), Tract. II, Solutio quaest. 4a; cf. L. Ehrlich, Pisma wybrane Pawla Wlodkowica. Warszawa 1968, t. 1, s. 61; 58-59). Never one at the other's expense, at the cost of the enslavement of the other, at the cost of conquest, outrage, exploitation and death. He who is speaking these words is the successor of John XXIII and Paul VI. But he is also the son of a nation that in its history has suffered many afflictions from others. He says this, not to accuse but to remind. He is speaking in the name of all the nations whose rights are being violated and forgotten. He is saying it because he is urged to do so by the truth and by solicitude for man. 4. Holy is God! Holy and strong! Holy Immortal One! From plague, from famine, from fire and from war... and from war, deliver us, Lord. Amen. Copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana 3 of 3 5/26/10 4:26 PM

115 HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER Mass In St Peter's Square For The Canonization of Sr Mary Faustina Kowalska Sunday, 30 April "Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius"; "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever" (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of Easter, as if receiving from Christ's lips these words of the Psalm; from the lips of the risen Christ, who bears the great message of divine mercy and entrusts its ministry to the Apostles in the Upper Room: "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you... Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (Jn 20: 21-23). Before speaking these words, Jesus shows his hands and his side. He points, that is, to the wounds of the Passion, especially the wound in his heart, the source from which flows the great wave of mercy poured out on humanity. From that heart Sr Faustina Kowalska, the blessed whom from now on we will call a saint, will see two rays of light shining from that heart and illuminating the world: "The two rays", Jesus himself explained to her one day, "represent blood and water" (Diary, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, p. 132). 2. Blood and water! We immediately think of the testimony given by the Evangelist John, who, when a solider on Calvary pierced Christ's side with his spear, sees blood and water flowing from it (cf. Jn 19: 34). Moreover, if the blood recalls the sacrifice of the Cross and the gift of the Eucharist, the water, in Johannine symbolism, represents not only Baptism but also the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 3: 5; 4: 14; 7: 37-39). Divine Mercy reaches human beings through the heart of Christ crucified: "My daughter, say that I am love and mercy personified", Jesus will ask Sr Faustina (Diary, p. 374). Christ pours out this mercy on humanity though the sending of the Spirit who, in the Trinity, is the Person-Love. And is not mercy love's "second name" (cf. Dives in misericordia, n. 7), understood in its deepest and most tender aspect, in its ability to take upon itself the burden of any need and, especially, in its immense capacity for forgiveness? Today my joy is truly great in presenting the life and witness of Sr Faustina Kowalska to the whole Church as a gift of God for our time. By divine Providence, the life of this humble daughter of Poland was completely linked with the history of the 20th century, the century we have just left behind. In fact, it was between the First and Second World Wars that Christ entrusted his message of mercy to her. Those who remember, who were witnesses and participants in the events of those years and the horrible sufferings they caused for millions of people, know well how necessary was the message of mercy Jesus told Sr Faustina: "Humanity will not find peace until it turns trustfully to divine mercy"(diary, p. 132). Through the work of the Polish religious, this message has become linked for ever to the 20th century, the last of the second millennium and the bridge to the third. It is not a new message but can be considered a gift of special enlightenment that helps us to relive the Gospel of Easter more intensely, to offer it as a ray of light to the men and women of our time. 3. What will the years ahead bring us? What will man's future on earth be like? We are not given to know. However, it is certain that in addition to new progress there will unfortunately be no lack of painful experiences. But the light of divine mercy, which the Lord in a way wished to return to the world through Sr Faustina's charism, will illumine the way for the men and women of the third millennium. However, as the Apostles once did, today too humanity must welcome into the upper room of history the risen Christ, who shows the wounds of his Crucifixion and repeats: Peace be with you! Humanity must let itself be touched and pervaded by the Spirit given to it by the risen Christ. It is the Spirit who heals the wounds of the heart, pulls down the barriers that separate us from God and divide us from one another, and at the same time, restores the joy of the Father's love and of fraternal unity. 4. It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes to us from the word of God on this Second Sunday of Easter, which from now on throughout the Church will be called "Divine Mercy Sunday". In the various readings, the liturgy seems to indicate the path of mercy which, while re-establishing the relationship of each person with God, also creates new relations of fraternal solidarity among human beings. Christ has taught us that "man not only receives and experiences the mercy of God, but is also called "to practise mercy' towards others: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy' (Mt 5: 7)" (Dives in misericordia, n. 14). He also showed us the many paths of mercy, which not only forgives sins but reaches out to all human needs. Jesus bent over every kind of human poverty, material and spiritual. His message of mercy continues to reach us through his hands held out to suffering man. This is how Sr Faustina saw him and proclaimed him to people on all the continents when, hidden in her convent at agiewniki in Kraków, she made her life a hymn to mercy: Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.

116 5. Sr Faustina's canonization has a particular eloquence: by this act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium. I pass it on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever better the true face of God and the true face of their brethren. In fact, love of God and love of one's brothers and sisters are inseparable, as the First Letter of John has reminded us: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments" (5: 2). Here the Apostle reminds us of the truth of love, showing us its measure and criterion in the observance of the commandments. It is not easy to love with a deep love, which lies in the authentic gift of self. This love can only be learned by penetrating the mystery of God's love. Looking at him, being one with his fatherly heart, we are able to look with new eyes at our brothers and sisters, with an attitude of unselfishness and solidarity, of generosity and forgiveness. All this is mercy! To the extent that humanity penetrates the mystery of this merciful gaze, it will seem possible to fulfil the ideal we heard in today's first reading: "The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather everything was held in common" (Acts 4: 32). Here mercy gave form to human relations and community life; it constituted the basis for the sharing of goods. This led to the spiritual and corporal "works of mercy". Here mercy became a concrete way of being "neighbour" to one's neediest brothers and sisters. 6. Sr Faustina Kowalska wrote in her Diary: "I feel tremendous pain when I see the sufferings of my neighbours. All my neighbours' sufferings reverberate in my own heart; I carry their anguish in my heart in such a way that it even physically destroys me. I would like all their sorrows to fall upon me, in order to relieve my neighbour" (Diary, p. 365). This is the degree of compassion to which love leads, when it takes the love of God as its measure! It is this love which must inspire humanity today, if it is to face the crisis of the meaning of life, the challenges of the most diverse needs and, especially, the duty to defend the dignity of every human person. Thus the message of divine mercy is also implicitly a message about the value of every human being. Each person is precious in God's eyes; Christ gave his life for each one; to everyone the Father gives his Spirit and offers intimacy. 7. This consoling message is addressed above all to those who, afflicted by a particularly harsh trial or crushed by the weight of the sins they committed, have lost all confidence in life and are tempted to give in to despair. To them the gentle face of Christ is offered; those rays from his heart touch them and shine upon them, warm them, show them the way and fill them with hope. How many souls have been consoled by the prayer "Jesus, I trust in you", which Providence intimated through Sr Faustina! This simple act of abandonment to Jesus dispels the thickest clouds and lets a ray of light penetrate every life. Jezu, ufam tobie. 8. Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo (Ps 88 [89]: 2). Let us too, the pilgrim Church, join our voice to the voice of Mary most holy, "Mother of Mercy", to the voice of this new saint who sings of mercy with all God's friends in the heavenly Jerusalem. And you, Faustina, a gift of God to our time, a gift from the land of Poland to the whole Church, obtain for us an awareness of the depth of divine mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and to bear witness to it among our brothers and sisters. May your message of light and hope spread throughout the world, spurring sinners to conversion, calming rivalries and hatred and opening individuals and nations to the practice of brotherhood. Today, fixing our gaze with you on the face of the risen Christ, let us make our own your prayer of trusting abandonment and say with firm hope: Christ Jesus, I trust in you! Jezu, ufam tobie! Copyright Libreria Editrice Vatican

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142 Thomas Aquinas, Prima Pars, Question 21, Article 4: Whether in every work of God there are mercy and justice? Ad quartum sic proceditur. Videtur quod non in omnibus Dei operibus sit misericordia et iustitia. Quaedam enim opera Dei attribuuntur misericordiae, ut iustificatio impii, quaedam vero iustitiae, ut damnatio impiorum. Unde dicitur Iac. II, iudicium sine misericordia fiet ei qui non fecerit misericordiam. Non ergo in omni opere Dei apparet misericordia et iustitia. Praeterea, apostolus, ad Rom. XV, conversionem Iudaeorum attribuit iustitiae et veritati; conversionem autem gentium, misericordiae. Ergo non in quolibet opere Dei est iustitia et misericordia. Praeterea, multi iusti in hoc mundo affliguntur. Hoc autem est iniustum. Non ergo in omni opere Dei est iustitia et misericordia. Praeterea, iustitiae est reddere debitum, misericordiae autem sublevare miseriam, et sic tam iustitia quam misericordia aliquid praesupponit in suo opere. Sed creatio nihil praesupponit. Ergo in creatione neque misericordia est, neque iustitia. Sed contra est quod dicitur in Psalmo XXIV, omnes viae domini misericordia et veritas. Respondeo dicendum quod necesse est quod in quolibet opere Dei misericordia et veritas inveniantur; si tamen misericordia pro remotione cuiuscumque defectus accipiatur; quamvis non omnis defectus proprie possit dici miseria, sed solum defectus rationalis naturae, quam contingit esse felicem; nam miseria felicitati opponitur. Huius autem necessitatis ratio est, quia, cum debitum quod ex divina iustitia redditur, sit vel debitum Deo, vel debitum alicui creaturae, neutrum potest in Objection 1: It seems that not in every work of God are mercy and justice. For some works of God are attributed to mercy, as the justification of the ungodly; and others to justice, as the damnation of the wicked. Hence it is said: "Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy" ( James 2:13 ). Therefore not in every work of God do mercy and justice appear. Objection 2: Further, the Apostle attributes the conversion of the Jews to justice and truth, but that of the Gentiles to mercy ( Rm. 15 ). Therefore not in every work of God are justice and mercy. Objection 3: Further, many just persons are afflicted in this world; which is unjust. Therefore not in every work of God are justice and mercy. Objection 4: Further, it is the part of justice to pay what is due, but of mercy to relieve misery. Thus both justice and mercy presuppose something in their works: whereas creation presupposes nothing. Therefore in creation neither mercy nor justice is found. On the contrary, It is said ( Ps. 24:10 ): "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth." I answer that, Mercy and truth are necessarily found in all God's works, if mercy be taken to mean the removal of any kind of defect. Not every defect, however, can properly be called a misery; but only defect in a rational nature whose lot is to be happy; for misery is opposed to happiness. For this necessity there is a reason, because since a debt paid according to the divine justice is one due either to God, or to some creature, neither the one nor the other can be lacking in any work of God: because God can do nothing that is not in accord

143 aliquo opere Dei praetermitti. Non enim potest facere aliquid Deus, quod non sit conveniens sapientiae et bonitati ipsius; secundum quem modum diximus aliquid esse debitum Deo. Similiter etiam quidquid in rebus creatis facit, secundum convenientem ordinem et proportionem facit; in quo consistit ratio iustitiae. Et sic oportet in omni opere Dei esse iustitiam. Opus autem divinae iustitiae semper praesupponit opus misericordiae, et in eo fundatur. Creaturae enim non debetur aliquid, nisi propter aliquid in eo praeexistens, vel praeconsideratum, et rursus, si illud creaturae debetur, hoc erit propter aliquid prius. Et cum non sit procedere in infinitum, oportet devenire ad aliquid quod ex sola bonitate divinae voluntatis dependeat, quae est ultimus finis. Utpote si dicamus quod habere manus debitum est homini propter animam rationalem; animam vero rationalem habere, ad hoc quod sit homo; hominem vero esse, propter divinam bonitatem. Et sic in quolibet opere Dei apparet misericordia, quantum ad primam radicem eius. Cuius virtus salvatur in omnibus consequentibus; et etiam vehementius in eis operatur, sicut causa primaria vehementius influit quam causa secunda. Et propter hoc etiam ea quae alicui creaturae debentur, Deus, ex abundantia suae bonitatis, largius dispensat quam exigat proportio rei. Minus enim est quod sufficeret ad conservandum ordinem iustitiae, quam quod divina bonitas confert, quae omnem proportionem creaturae excedit. Ad primum ergo dicendum quod quaedam opera attribuuntur iustitiae et quaedam misericordiae, quia in quibusdam vehementius apparet iustitia, in quibusdam misericordia. Et tamen in damnatione reproborum apparet misericordia, non quidem totaliter relaxans, sed aliqualiter allevians, dum punit citra condignum. with His wisdom and goodness; and it is in this sense, as we have said, that anything is due to God. Likewise, whatever is done by Him in created things, is done according to proper order and proportion wherein consists the idea of justice. Thus justice must exist in all God's works. Now the work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy; and is founded thereupon. For nothing is due to creatures, except for something pre existing in them, or foreknown. Again, if this is due to a creature, it must be due on account of something that precedes. And since we cannot go on to infinity, we must come to something that depends only on the goodness of the divine will which is the ultimate end. We may say, for instance, that to possess hands is due to man on account of his rational soul; and his rational soul is due to him that he may be man; and his being man is on account of the divine goodness. So in every work of God, viewed at its primary source, there appears mercy. In all that follows, the power of mercy remains, and works indeed with even greater force; as the influence of the first cause is more intense than that of second causes. For this reason does God out of abundance of His goodness bestow upon creatures what is due to them more bountifully than is proportionate to their deserts: since less would suffice for preserving the order of justice than what the divine goodness confers; because between creatures and God's goodness there can be no proportion. Reply to Objection 1: Certain works are attributed to justice, and certain others to mercy, because in some justice appears more forcibly and in others mercy. Even in the damnation of the reprobate mercy is seen, which, though it does not totally remit, yet somewhat alleviates, in punishing short of what is deserved.

144 Et in iustificatione impii apparet iustitia, dum culpas relaxat propter dilectionem, quam tamen ipse misericorditer infundit, sicut de Magdalena legitur, Luc. VII, dimissa sunt ei peccata multa, quoniam dilexit multum. Ad secundum dicendum quod iustitia et misericordia Dei apparet in conversione Iudaeorum et gentium, sed aliqua ratio iustitiae apparet in conversione Iudaeorum, quae non apparet in conversione gentium, sicut quod salvati sunt propter promissiones patribus factas Ad tertium dicendum quod in hoc etiam quod iusti puniuntur in hoc mundo, apparet iustitia et misericordia; inquantum per huiusmodi afflictiones aliqua levia in eis purgantur, et ab affectu terrenorum in Deum magis eriguntur; secundum illud Gregorii, mala quae in hoc mundo nos premunt, ad Deum nos ire compellunt. Ad quartum dicendum quod, licet creationi non praesupponatur aliquid in rerum natura, praesupponitur tamen aliquid in Dei cognitione. Et secundum hoc etiam salvatur ibi ratio iustitiae, inquantum res in esse producitur, secundum quod convenit divinae sapientiae et bonitati. Et salvatur quodammodo ratio misericordiae, inquantum res de non esse in esse mutatur. In the justification of the ungodly, justice is seen, when God remits sins on account of love, though He Himself has mercifully infused that love. So we read of Magdalen: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much" ( Lk. 7:47 ). Reply to Objection 2: God's justice and mercy appear both in the conversion of the Jews and of the Gentiles. But an aspect of justice appears in the conversion of the Jews which is not seen in the conversion of the Gentiles; inasmuch as the Jews were saved on account of the promises made to the fathers. Reply to Objection 3: Justice and mercy appear in the punishment of the just in this world, since by afflictions lesser faults are cleansed in them, and they are the more raised up from earthly affections to God. As to this Gregory says (Moral. xxvi, 9): "The evils that press on us in this world force us to go to God." Reply to Objection 4: Although creation presupposes nothing in the universe; yet it does presuppose something in the knowledge of God. In this way too the idea of justice is preserved in creation; by the production of beings in a manner that accords with the divine wisdom and goodness. And the idea of mercy, also, is preserved in the change of creatures from non existence to existence.

145 Thomas Aquinas, Prima Secundae, Question 113, Article 9: Whether the justification of the ungodly is is God s greatest work? Ad nonum sic proceditur. Videtur quod iustificatio impii non sit maximum opus Dei. Per iustificationem enim impii consequitur aliquis gratiam viae. Sed per glorificationem consequitur aliquis gratiam patriae, quae maior est. Ergo glorificatio Angelorum vel hominum est maius opus quam iustificatio impii. Praeterea, iustificatio impii ordinatur ad bonum particulare unius hominis. Sed bonum universi est maius quam bonum unius hominis; ut patet in I Ethic. Ergo maius opus est creatio caeli et terrae quam iustificatio impii. Praeterea, maius est ex nihilo aliquid facere, et ubi nihil cooperatur agenti, quam ex aliquo facere aliquid cum aliqua cooperatione patientis. Sed in opere creationis ex nihilo fit aliquid, unde nihil potest cooperari agenti. Sed in iustificatione impii Deus ex aliquo aliquid facit, idest ex impio iustum, et est ibi aliqua cooperatio ex parte hominis, quia est ibi motus liberi arbitrii, ut dictum est. Ergo iustificatio impii non est maximum opus Dei. Sed contra est quod in Psalmo CXLIV, dicitur, miserationes eius super omnia opera eius. Et in collecta dicitur, Deus, qui omnipotentiam tuam parcendo maxime et miserando manifestas. Et Augustinus dicit exponens illud Ioan. XIV, maiora horum faciet, quod maius opus est ut ex impio iustus fiat, quam creare caelum et terram. Objection 1: It would seem that the justification of the ungodly is not God's greatest work. For it is by the justification of the ungodly that we attain the grace of a wayfarer. Now by glorification we receive heavenly grace, which is greater. Hence the glorification of angels and men is a greater work than the justification of the ungodly. Objection 2: Further, the justification of the ungodly is ordained to the particular good of one man. But the good of the universe is greater than the good of one man, as is plain from Ethic. i, 2. Hence the creation of heaven and earth is a greater work than the justification of the ungodly. Objection 3: Further, to make something from nothing, where there is nought to cooperate with the agent, is greater than to make something with the cooperation of the recipient. Now in the work of creation something is made from nothing, and hence nothing can cooperate with the agent; but in the justification of the ungodly God makes something from something, i.e. a just man from a sinner, and there is a cooperation on man's part, since there is a movement of the free will, as stated above ( Article [3] ). Hence the justification of the ungodly is not God's greatest work. On the contrary, It is written ( Ps. 144:9 ): "His tender mercies are over all His works," and in a collect [*Tenth Sunday after Pentecost] we say: "O God, Who dost show forth Thine all mightiness most by pardoning and having mercy," and Augustine, expounding the words, "greater than these shall he do" ( Jn. 14:12 ) says that "for a just man to be made from a sinner, is greater than to create heaven and earth."

146 Respondeo dicendum quod opus aliquod potest dici magnum dupliciter. Uno modo, ex parte modi agendi. Et sic maximum est opus creationis, in quo ex nihilo fit aliquid. Alio modo potest dici opus magnum propter magnitudinem eius quod fit. Et secundum hoc, maius opus est iustificatio impii, quae terminatur ad bonum aeternum divinae participationis, quam creatio caeli et terrae, quae terminatur ad bonum naturae mutabilis. Et ideo Augustinus, cum dixisset quod maius est quod ex impio fiat iustus, quam creare caelum et terram, subiungit, caelum enim et terra transibit, praedestinatorum autem salus et iustificatio permanebit. Sed sciendum est quod aliquid magnum dicitur dupliciter. Uno modo, secundum quantitatem absolutam. Et hoc modo donum gloriae est maius quam donum gratiae iustificantis impium. Et secundum hoc, glorificatio iustorum est maius opus quam iustificatio impii. Alio modo dicitur aliquid magnum quantitate proportionis, sicut dicitur mons parvus, et milium magnum. Et hoc modo donum gratiae impium iustificantis est maius quam donum gloriae beatificantis iustum, quia plus excedit donum gratiae dignitatem impii, qui erat dignus poena, quam donum gloriae dignitatem iusti, qui ex hoc ipso quod est iustificatus, est dignus gloria. Et ideo Augustinus dicit ibidem, iudicet qui potest, utrum maius sit iustos Angelos creare quam impios iustificare. Certe, si aequalis est utrumque potentiae, hoc maioris est misericordiae. Et per hoc patet responsio ad primum. Ad secundum dicendum quod bonum universi est maius quam bonum particulare unius, si accipiatur utrumque in eodem genere. Sed bonum gratiae unius maius est quam bonum naturae totius universi. I answer that, A work may be called great in two ways: first, on the part of the mode of action, and thus the work of creation is the greatest work, wherein something is made from nothing; secondly, a work may be called great on account of what is made, and thus the justification of the ungodly, which terminates at the eternal good of a share in the Godhead, is greater than the creation of heaven and earth, which terminates at the good of mutable nature. Hence, Augustine, after saying that "for a just man to be made from a sinner is greater than to create heaven and earth," adds, "for heaven and earth shall pass away, but the justification of the ungodly shall endure." Again, we must bear in mind that a thing is called great in two ways: first, in an absolute quantity, and thus the gift of glory is greater than the gift of grace that sanctifies the ungodly; and in this respect the glorification of the just is greater than the justification of the ungodly. Secondly, a thing may be said to be great in proportionate quantity, and thus the gift of grace that justifies the ungodly is greater than the gift of glory that beatifies the just, for the gift of grace exceeds the worthiness of the ungodly, who are worthy of punishment, more than the gift of glory exceeds the worthiness of the just, who by the fact of their justification are worthy of glory. Hence Augustine says: "Let him that can, judge whether it is greater to create the angels just, than to justify the ungodly. Certainly, if they both betoken equal power, one betokens greater mercy." And thus the reply to the first is clear. Reply to Objection 2: The good of the universe is greater than the particular good of one, if we consider both in the same genus. But the good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the whole universe.

147 Ad tertium dicendum quod ratio illa procedit ex parte modi agendi, secundum quem creatio est maximum opus Dei. Reply to Objection 3: This objection rests on the manner of acting, in which way creation is God's greatest work.

148 St. Thomas Aquinas, In III Sent., proemium: 1 Unto the place from whence the rivers come, they return, to flow again. Ecclesiastes 1:7. From these words we are able to take two things, in which the matter of this third book may be understood, namely the mystery of the divine Incarnation, and its copious fruit. The mystery of the Incarnation is suggested by the turning back of the streams, whence it is said: Unto the place whence the rivers come, they return. But the fruit of the Incarnation is shown by the repeated flow, whence it is said: to flow again. These rivers are natural goods which God streams into created things, such as to be, to live, to understand, and the like: of which rivers can be understood what is said [in the book] of Isaiah (41:18): I will open rivers in the heights of the mountains. Mountains are the noblest created things, in which the aforementioned rivers are said to be opened, since in them they are both most copiously received and shown without imperfection. But the place from whence these rivers come is God himself, regarding whom can be understood what is said in Isaiah (33:21): a place of rivers, very broad and spacious streams; even as it may be said: in the place of origin of the rivers, streams of natural goods are eminently found. Hence he says: very broad, inasmuch as to the perfection of divine good, according to which all goods are predicated; and spacious, inasmuch as towards an unfailing communication; since his goodness, from which all things flow, can neither be exhausted nor come to an end. 1 Ad locum unde exeunt, flumina revertuntur ut iterum fluant. Eccle. 1, 7. Ex verbis istis duo possumus accipere, in quibus hujus tertii libri materia comprehenditur, scilicet divinae Incarnationis mysterium, et ejus copiosum fructum. Mysterium Incarnationis insinuatur in fluminum reversione, cum dicitur: Ad locum unde exeunt flumina revertuntur. Sed Incarnationis fructus ostenditur in iterato fluxu, cum dicitur: Ut iterum fluant. Flumina ista sunt naturales bonitates quas Deus creaturis influit, ut esse, vivere, intelligere, et hujusmodi: de quibus fluminibus potest intelligi quod dicitur Isaiae 41, 18: Aperiam in supremis montium flumina. Montes enim supremi sunt nobilissimae creaturae, in quibus praedicta flumina aperiri dicuntur, quia in eis et copiosissime recipiuntur, et sine imperfectione ostenduntur. Sed locus unde ista flumina exeunt, est ipse Deus, de quo potest intelligi quod dicitur Isa. 53, 21: Locus fluviorum rivi latissimi et patentes; ac si diceret: in loco ortus fluviorum rivi naturalium bonitatum eminenter inveniuntur; unde dicit: Latissimi, quantum ad perfectionem divinae bonitatis, secundum omnia attributa; et patentes, quantum ad communicationem indeficientem; quia ejus bonitas, ex qua omnia fluunt, nec exhauriri nec concludi potest. Ista flumina in aliis creaturis inveniuntur distincta; sed in homine inveniuntur quodammodo aggregata: homo enim est quasi orizon et confinium spiritualis et corporalis naturae, ut quasi medium inter utrasque, bonitates participet et corporales et spirituales; unde et omnis creaturae nomine homo intelligitur Marc. ult. ubi dicitur: Praedicate Evangelium omni creaturae; ut beatus Gregorius (hom. 20 in Evang.) exponit: et ideo quando humana natura per incarnationis mysterium Deo conjuncta est, omnia flumina naturalium bonitatum ad suum principium reflexa redierunt, ut possit dici quod legitur Josue 4, 17: Reversae sunt aquae in alveum suum, et fluebant sicut ante consueverant; unde et hic sequitur: ut iterum fluant: in quo notatur incarnationis fructus: ipse enim Deus, qui naturalia bona influxerat, reversis quodammodo omnibus per assumptionem humanae naturae in ipsum, non jam Deus tantummodo, sed Deus et homo hominibus fluenta gratiarum abundanter influxit: quia de plenitudine ejus omnes accepimus, gratiam pro gratia: Joan. 1, 16. Et de isto influxu legitur Eccli. 39, 27: Benedictio illius quasi fluvius inundabit. Et sic patet materia tertii libri: in cujus prima parte agitur de incarnatione, in secunda de virtutibus et donis nobis per Christum collatis. St. Thomas Aquinas, In III Sent., pr. Parma ed. (Parma: 1857), 5. Translation mine, edited and corrected by Brother Leo Checkai, O.P.

149 These rivers are found separate in other creatures; but in man they are found together. For man is like unto the horizon and of the border of spiritual and bodily nature, as though, midway between one and the other, he participates corporal and spiritual goods. Hence by the name man all creatures are understood, whence is said in the last chapter of Mark: Preach the Gospel to all creation. As blessed Gregory (Hom. 20 in Evang.) expounds: and therefore when human nature is conjoined to God through the mystery of the Incarnation, all the rivers of natural goods, returning, go back to their source, as can be said what is read in Joshua 4:17: The waters were reversed in their channel, and flowed as just as they had before. Hence this also follows: that they might flow again: in which is observed the fruit of the Incarnation. For God himself, who had streamed natural goods, by turning back in a certain way all things through the assumption of human nature in himself, no longer only God, but God-and-man streams rivers of graces abundantly to men, because of his fullness we have all received, grace for grace: John 1:16. And of this influx it is read in Ecclesiasticus 39:27: His blessing hath overflowed like a river. And so the matter of this third book is apparent: in its first part treating of the Incarnation, in its second of the virtues and gifts given to us through Christ.

150 On the Dignity and Destiny of the Person The following are from On The Church In The Modern World Gaudium Et Spes Pope Paul VI, December 7, They are frequently cited by St John Paul II 22. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown. He Who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin. 24. God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who "from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God Himself. For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor: "If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself... Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law" (Rom. 13:9-10; cf. 1 John 4:20). To men growing daily more dependent on one another, and to a world becoming more unified every day, this truth proves to be of paramount importance. Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one... as we are one" (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. Today there exists an increasingly evident need for philosophical reflection concerning the truth about the human person. A metaphysical approach is needed as an antidote to intellectual and moral relativism. But what is required even more is fidelity to the word of God, to ensure that human progress takes into account the entire revealed truth of the eternal act of love in which the universe and especially the human person acquire ultimate meaning. The more one seeks to unravel the mystery of the human person, the more open one becomes to the mystery of transcendence. The more deeply one penetrates the divine mystery, the more one discovers the true greatness and dignity of human beings. John Paul II in America Sept 12, 1987 New Orleans, LA - By Jacques Maritain, Education at the Crossroads (New Haven, 1943) Man is a person, who holds himself in hand by his intelligence and his will. He does not merely exist as a physical being. There is in him a richer and nobler existence; he has spiritual superexistence through knowledge and love. He is thus, in some way, a whole, not merely a part; he is a universe unto himself, a microcosm in which the great universe in its entirety can be encompassed through knowledge. And through love he can give himself freely to beings who are to him, as it were, others selves; and for this relationship no equivalent can be found in the physical world.... A person possesses absolute dignity because he is in direct relationship with the realm of being, truth, goodness, and beauty, and with God, and it is only with these that he can arrive at complete fulfillment.

151 READINGS FOR SESSION 10

152 GENERAL AUDIENCE Wednesday 10 October 1979 The Meaning of Man's Original Solitude In the last reflection of the present cycle we reached an introductory conclusion, taken from the words of Genesis on the creation of man as male and female. We reached these words, that is, the "beginning," to which the Lord Jesus referred in his talk on the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:3 9; Mk 10:1 12). But the conclusion at which we arrived does not yet end the series of our analyses. We must reread the narrations of the first and second chapters of Genesis in a wider context, which will allow us to establish a series of meanings of the ancient text to which Christ referred. Therefore, today we will reflect on the meaning of man's original solitude. The starting point of this reflection is provided for us directly by the following words of Genesis: "It is not good that man [male] should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" ( Gn 2:18). God Yahweh speaks these words. They belong to the second account of the creation of man, and so they come from the Yahwist tradition. As we have already recalled, it is significant that, as regards the Yahwist text, the account of the creation of the man is a separate passage ( Gn 2:7). It precedes the account of the creation of the first woman ( Gn 2:21 22). It is also significant that the first man (' adam ), created from "dust from the ground," is defined as a "male" (' is ) only after the creation of the first woman. So when GodYahweh speaks the words about solitude, it is in reference to the solitude of "man" as such, and not just to that of the male. However, it is difficult to go very far in drawing conclusions merely on the basis of this fact. Nevertheless, the complete context of that solitude of which Genesis 2:18 speaks can convince us that it is a question here of the solitude of "man" (male and female) and not just of the solitude of man the male, caused by the lack of woman. Therefore, on the basis of the whole context, it seems that this solitude has two meanings: one derived from man's very nature, that is, from his humanity, and the other derived from the male female relationship. The first meaning is evident in the account of Genesis 2, and the second is evident, in a certain way, on the basis of the first meaning. A detailed analysis of the description seems to confirm this. The problem of solitude is manifested only in the context of the second account of the creation of man. The first account ignores this problem. There man is created in one act as male and female. "God created man in his own image...male and female he created them" ( Gn 1:27). As we have already mentioned, the second account speaks first of the creation of the man and only afterward of the creation of the woman from the "rib" of the male. This account concentrates our attention on the fact that "man is alone." This appears as a fundamental anthropological problem, prior, in a certain sense, to the one raised by the fact that this man is male and female. This problem is prior not so much in the chronological sense, as in the

153 existential sense. It is prior "by its very nature." The problem of man's solitude from the point of view of the theology of the body will also be revealed as such, if we succeed in making a thorough analysis of the second account of creation in Genesis 2. The affirmadon of God Yahweh, "It is not good that man should be alone," appears not only in the immediate context of the decision to create woman, "I will make him a helper fit for him," but also in the wider context of reasons and circumstances. These explain more deeply the meaning of man's original solitude. The Yahwist text connects the creation of man first and foremost with the need to "till the ground" ( Gn 2:5). That would correspond, in the first account, with the vocation to subdue and have dominion over the earth (cf. Gn 1:28). Then, the second account of creation speaks of man being put in the "garden in Eden," and in this way introduces us to the state of his original happiness. Up to this moment man is the object of the creative action of God Yahweh, who at the same time, as legislator, establishes the conditions of the first covenant with man. Man's subjectivity is already emphasized through this. It finds a further expression when the Lord God "formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to man to see what he would call them" ( Gn 2:19). In this way, therefore, the first meaning of man's original solitude is defined on the basis of a specific test or examination which man undergoes before God (and in a certain way also before himself). By means of this test, man becomes aware of his own superiority, that is, that he cannot be considered on the same foodng as any other species of living beings on the earth. As the text says, "Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name" ( Gn 2:19). "The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man [male] there was not found a helper fit for him" ( Gn 2:20). All this part of the text is unquestionably a preparation for the account of the creation of woman. However, it possesses a deep meaning even apart from this creation. Right from the first moment of his existence, created man finds himself before God as if in search of his own entity. It could be said he is in search of the definition of himself. A contemporary person would say he is in search of his own "identity." The fact that man "is alone" in the midst of the visible world and, in particular, among living beings, has a negative significance in this search, since it expresses what he "is not." Nevertheless, the fact of not being able to identify himself essentially with the visible world of other living beings ( animalia ) has, at the same time, a positive aspect for this primary search. Even if this fact is not yet a complete definition, it constitutes one of its elements. If we accept the Aristotelian tradition in logic and in anthropology, it would be necessary to define this element as the "proximate genus" ( genus proximum ). However, the Yahwist text enables us to discover also further elements in that admirable passage. Man finds himself alone before God mainly to express, through a first self definition, his own self knowledge, as the original and fundamental manifestation of mankind. Self knowledge develops at the same rate as knowledge of the world, of all the visible creatures, of all the living beings to which man has given a

154 name to affirm his own dissimilarity with regard to them. In this way, consciousness reveals man as the one who possesses a cognitive faculty as regards the visible world. With this knowledge which, in a certain way, brings him out of his own being, man at the same time reveals himself to himself in all the peculiarity of his being. He is not only essentially and subjectively alone. Solitude also signifies man's subjectivity, which is constituted through selfknowledge. Man is alone because he is "different" from the visible world, from the world of living beings. Analyzing the text of Genesis we are, in a way, witnesses of how man "distinguishes himself " before God Yahweh from the whole world of living beings ( animalia ) with his first act of self consciousness, and of how he reveals himself to himself. At the same time he asserts himself as a "person" in the visible world. Sketched so incisively in Genesis 2:19 20, that process is a search for a definition of himself. Linking up with the Aristotelian tradition, it leads to indicating the proximate genus. Chapter 2 of Genesis expresses this with the words: "The man gave names..." There corresponds to this the specific differentia which is, according to Aristotle's definition, nôus, zoón noetikón. This process also leads to the first delineation of the human being as a human person with the specific subjectivity that characterizes him.

155 GENERAL AUDIENCE Wednesday 14 November 1979 By the Communion of Persons Man Becomes the Image of God Following the narrative of Genesis, we have seen that the "definitive" creation of man consists in the creation of the unity of two beings. Their unity denotes above all the identity of human nature; their duality, on the other hand, manifests what, on the basis of this identity, constitutes the masculinity and femininity of created man. This ontological dimension of unity and duality has, at the same time, an axiological meaning. From the text of Genesis 2:23 and from the whole context, it is clearly seen that man was created as a particular value before God. "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" ( Gn 1:31). But man was also created as a particular value for himself first, because he is man; second, because the woman is for the man, and vice versa, the man is for the woman. In this way the meaning of man's original unity, through masculinity and femininity, is expressed as an overcoming of the frontier of solitude. At the same time it is an affirmation with regard to both human beings of everything that constitutes man in solitude. In the Bible narrative, solitude is the way that leads to that unity which, following Vatican II, we can define as communio personarum. As we have already seen, in his original solitude man acquires a personal consciousness in the process of distinction from all living beings ( animalia ). At the same time, in this solitude, he opens up to a being akin to himself, defined in Genesis (2:18, 20) as "a helper fit for him." This opening is no less decisive for the person of man; in fact, it is perhaps even more decisive than the distinction itself. In the Yahwist narrative, man's solitude is presented to us not only as the first discovery of the characteristic transcendence peculiar to the person. It is also presented as the discovery of an adequate relationship "to" the person, and therefore as an opening and expectation of a "communion of persons." The term "community" could also be used here, if it were not generic and did not have so many meanings. Communio expresses more, with greater precision, since it indicates precisely that "help" which is derived, in a sense, from the very fact of existing as a person "beside" a person. In the Bible narrative this fact becomes eo ipso in itself the existence of the person "for" the person, since man in his original solitude was, in a way, already in this relationship. That is confirmed, in a negative sense, precisely by this solitude. Furthermore, the communion of persons could be formed only on the basis of a "double solitude" of man and of woman, that is, as their meeting in their distinction from the world of living beings ( animalia ), which gave them both the possibility of being and existing in a special reciprocity. The concept of "help" also expresses this reciprocity in existence, which no other living being could have ensured. All that constituted the foundation of the solitude of each of them was indispensable for this reciprocity.

156 Self knowledge and self determination, that is, subjectivity and consciousness of the meaning of one's own body, was also indispensable. In the first chapter, the narrative of the creation of man affirms directly, right from the beginning, that man was created in the image of God as male and female. The narrative of the second chapter, on the other hand, does not speak of the "image of God." But in its own way it reveals that the complete and definitive creation of "man" (subjected first to the experience of original solitude) is expressed in giving life to that communio personarum that man and woman form. In this way, the Yahwist narrative agrees with the content of the first narrative. If, vice versa, we wish to draw also from the narrative of the Yahwist text the concept of "image of God," we can then deduce that man became the "image and likeness" of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons which man and woman form right from the beginning. The function of the image is to reflect the one who is the model, to reproduce its own prototype. Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. Right "from the beginning," he is not only an image in which the solitude of a person who rules the world is reflected, but also, and essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of persons. In this way, the second narrative could also be a preparation for understanding the Trinitarian concept of the "image of God," even if the latter appears only in the first narrative. Obviously, that is not without significance for the theology of the body. Perhaps it even constitutes the deepest theological aspect of all that can be said about man. In the mystery of creation on the basis of the original and constituent "solitude" of his being man was endowed with a deep unity between what is, humanly and through the body, male in him and what is, equally humanly and through the body, female in him. On all this, right from the beginning, the blessing of fertility descended, linked with human procreation (cf. Gn 1:28). In this way, we find ourselves almost at the heart of the anthropological reality that has the name "body." The words of Genesis 2:23 speak of it directly and for the first time in the following terms: "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." The man uttered these words, as if it were only at the sight of the woman that he was able to identify and call by name what makes them visibly similar to each other, and at the same time what manifests humanity. In the light of the preceding analysis of all the "bodies" which man has come into contact with and which he has defined, conceptually giving them their name ( animalia ), the expression "flesh of my flesh" takes on precisely this meaning: the body reveals man. This concise formula already contains everything that human science could ever say about the structure of the body as organism, about its vitality, and its particular sexual physiology, etc. This first expression of the man, "flesh of my flesh," also contains a reference to what makes that body truly human. Therefore it referred to what determines man as a person, that is, as a being who, even in all his corporality, is similar to God.

157 We find ourselves, therefore, almost at the very core of the anthropological reality, the name of which is "body," the human body. However, as can easily be seen, this core is not only anthropological, but also essentially theological. Right from the beginning, the theology of the body is bound up with the creation of man in the image of God. It becomes, in a way, also the theology of sex, or rather the theology of masculinity and femininity, which has its starting point here in Genesis. The words of Genesis 2:24 bear witness to the original meaning of unity, which will have in the revelation of God an ample and distant perspective. This unity through the body "and the two will be one flesh"possesses a multiform dimension. It possesses an ethical dimension, as is confirmed by Christ's answer to the Pharisees in Matthew 19 (cf. Mk 10). It also has a sacramental dimension, a strictly theological one, as is proved by St. Paul's words to the Ephesians'`' which refer also to the tradition of the prophets (Hosea, Isaiah, Ezekiel). This is so because, right from the beginning, that unity which is realized through the body indicates not only the "body," but also the "incarnate" communion of persons communio personarum and calls for this communion. Masculinity and femininity express the dual aspect of man's somatic constitution. "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Furthermore, through the same words of Genesis 2:23, they indicate the new consciousness of the sense of one's own body. It can be said that this sense consists in a mutual enrichment. Precisely this consciousness, through which humanity is formed again as the communion of persons, seems to be the layer which in the narrative of the creation of man (and in the revelation of the body contained in it) is deeper than his somatic structure as male and female. In any case, this structure is presented right from the beginning with a deep consciousness of human corporality and sexuality, and that establishes an inalienable norm for the understanding of man on the theological plane.

158 READINGS FOR SESSION 11

159 The END and the BEGINNING Pope John Paul 11 The Victory o f Freedmtr th e l^ t Years, thel^gagy, f.0 JI o ') ;e.-we: bi fi >n, L <)) is, fe ri<» i' I! (,'J.» 'i Cl Doubleday < New York London Toronto Sydney i^j^j^land ' 1

160 CHAPTER NINE. > I T he.l ast Encyclical Jamary-rApril 2005! r j 4 February i, 2005 February 7,C SufFeringirom breathing difficulties. Pope John Paul II is takento the Policlinico Gemelli:,, MemorjCand Identity, John PaulJIs last bbok. is' published. ^ February-9,2009 i- John Paul celebrates Ash Wednesday Mass in the ' February 10, February 24,* 2005 ^ Mafch"i3,2005 March 20,2QD5'.» * March 25^20051 *» r March.27, * March,3i', 2005 April 1,2005 fi, Gemelli. ' * John PauUI returns to,the "Vatican from the Gemelli through crowds of cheering Romans'^. John Paul is taken hack to the,*gemelli and receives a tracheotomyj John Paul II returns to the Vatican. Unahle to speak, the PopeWesses the Palm Sunday congregation in Sft Peter s Squ^e. ' * John-Paul participates*in the Via Crucis atthe Roman Golosseum through a television in the chapel of.the papal apartment. ^ John Paul II attempts to speak to Easter, crowds in St. Peter s Square hut manages only a silent blessing. John Raul-falls into septic shock.. John PauLconcelehrates Mass for the last tim'd and re- 'ceives visitors. 0 ' s '

161 370 T h e En d a n d t h e Be g i n n in g April 2,2005 April 8,2005 Pope John Paul II dies at 9:37 p.m. Pope John Paul II is interred in the Vatican grottos. The Stations of the Cross played an important role in Karol Wojtylas spiritual life for more than seventy-five years. As a boy, he had seen Christ s passion dramatically reenacted at Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, the Holy Land shrine near his hometown of Wadowice, shortly after his mother s death. As a priest and bishop, he prayed the fourteen stations every Friday; during Lent, he prayed them every day. As pope, he had a set of ceramic stations installed in the roof garden atop the Apostolic Palace so that he could pray outdoors, in privacy, when the weather was clement. And, of course, he had led the annual Via Crucis at the Roman Colosseum on the evening of Good Friday for a quarter century. On Good Friday 2005, his health rapidly failing. Pope John Paul II once again led the Church through its walk with Christ from the tribunal of Pontius Pilate to Calvary, the cross, and the tomb albeit at a distance and in a different way. The ceremony at the Colosseum was led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the College of Cardinals, who had written the meditations for each station at the Pope s request. Ratzinger s brief reflections, insightful and eloquent, linked the Via Crucis to the Year of the Eucharist the Catholic Church was celebrating throughout the world; they would later be published in booklet form. Yet what struck the Church and the world most powerfully as Good Friday drew to a close on the night of March 25,2005, was the witness of the man who was not there: John Paul II. He could barely whisper. But as Cardinal Ratzinger led the solemn procession through the ruins of antiquity, John Paul II prayed the Via Crucis while watching the ceremony at the Colosseum on a television set that had been placed in the chapel of the papal apartment. A television camera at the door of the chapel showed the world John Paul s prayer. He was seated, and grasped in his arms a large crucifix, as he prayed through the fourteen stations with the congregation near the Jloman Forum. Those watching at the Colosseum and on television could see only John Paul s back; his face was never shown. Contrary to press speculations, however, he was

162 T h e L a s t E n c y c l i c a l ; J a n u a r y - A pril n6t hiding his pain or the ravages of weeks of illness. Rather, he was doing whatjhe had always done,.which.was not to say, Look at me, but rather, Look to Christ. The last two mohths of the life of Pope John Paul II were in some respects the most dramatic in a life already replete, with drama. As papal chief of staff Leonardo Sandri (who.became the Pope s voice to the Chiurch and the- world when John Paul s own voice failed) put it, those last two months were also an eloquent summary of the years of his pontificate since the Great Jubilee of 2000: His sense of his own weakness.paralleled his sense of the power of God at work in him and in the Church.* The Cross was a means of joy in his last years, even amidst deep frustration. His silences,- punctuated by those vigilant and expressive eyes, were times of meditation. ' Pope John Paul II died a priest s death and his dying was his last great teaching moment. His suffering and the manner of his dying led the Church and the world, as Catholic priests must, into a. deeper experience of the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. The priest and bishop who could sometimes be found prostrate" on the floor of a chapel, his arms extended in imitation of the crucified Christ, died as he had lived embracing,christ crucified in the sure conviction that death was the threshold of eternal life. These were things he had taught for decades. His last and perhaps most powerful lesson was the lesson he taught with his silent suffering and his holy death-r-his last encyclical. 1^ A Cheerful Ma n By January 2005, Joaquin Navarro-Vails had been the press spokesnian of the Holy See for twenty years, a friend and confidant of the Pope whaoccasionally used him csn informal diplomatic missions. Some measure of John Paul s confidence in the. Spaniard who had'begim his professional life as a psychiatrist before switching to journalism can be found in the Pope s response to Navarro on thfe three occasions when the papal portavoce asked to be relieved of his duties. Each time, John Paul would say to those in the

163 372 T h e En d a n d t h e Be g in n in g meeting, lliis is a very important question Dr. Navarro has put on the table. We must reflect on it carefully. Come back in five years and tell me what you think. ^ Navarro experienced the last years of John Paul dl, and believed the Pope experienced them, as -a time of great peace. There were frustrations, to be sure; there were questions, as always; there was the dark night of the summer of But having completed the Gredt Jubilee of 2000, John Paul II was a man fundamentally at peace jimwomo allegro, Navarro said, a cheerful man. This was not the cheerfulness of a child, the spokesman noted. It was the cheerfulness or serenity that came from a conscious Christian decision to live that way: a decision rooted in the conviction that the end of the story, for John Paul himself and for the world, is a happy one, because of the infinite mercy of God. That was why the humor and the laughter remained intact until the end, even when the laughter could not be expressed physically.. John Paul s serenity at the end of his life also grew from the intersection of his philosophical realism and his.faith, Navarro believed. Like others trapped in a body that would no longer* obey them, the Pope might have thought, It would be nice if I weren t sick, if I could move more easily. But that was not his situation, and it was false to pretend ot wish otherwise*. Therefore what seems to be an obstacle or a stumbling block must in fact, and in the light of faith, be an opportunity to live out what he had taught the Church'in*Novo M illennio Ineunte, that the completion of the Great Jubilee was both end and beginning. In the light of that conviction, coupled with his determination to promote cultures that cherished life under all circumstances, the Pope believed his physical deterioration should not be hidden. Some found it embarrassing when John Paul drooled a bit in public because of his inability to control his facial muscles; the Pope, for his part, was determined to live his mission to the end, even at the cost of embarrassment. Thus when, in the last years, the Vatican television producers asked Navarro.wh'ether they should arrange the camera angles to avoid showing John Paul s, trembling hand, Navarro, knowing the Pope s mind, said they should simply use their best professional judgment and not worry if the world saw the effects of John Paul s Parkinsons disease. Cardinal Jean-hJarie Lustiger s experience of the last years of John Paid II was similar to.navarro s. As he understoodthe Pope s mind the question never was Do I stay or do I go? The N unc dim ittis of the Great Jubilee,

164 T h e L a s t E n c y c l ic a l : Ja n u a r y - A p r il as written in John Paul s Testament, was a thanksgiving, not a re quest*for a4eave of absence and not a valedictory. No, the question for John Paul, Lustiger beheved, was How do I fulfill God s will? As John PauL'knew, the disciple could-not ask for anything else than to share the Masters passion and in doing so, to summon from-the world s sometimes cold heart the warmth of compassion for all those who suffer. John Paul II had lived at the heart'of humanity s-problems for d quarter century, Lustiger recalled longer than any other major figure of his time. The way in which he bore that burden through his own pain and fatigue, the cardinal suggested, revealed a deeper way to relate to the world s pain than was possible in the daysmf John Paul. Superstar, important aslhe great'events of that part of his pontificate had been. And since no one in the world was immime from suffering, the serenity'-with which he bore his share of the common human lot was, for the world, a great testimony to the universal relevance of Christ s message. For the Church, it was yet another invitation to embrace the everyday sanctity that had been the key to John Paul II s pastoral program.i He stayed close to his friends as long as possible, continuing the pastoral strategy of accompaniment he had pioneered as a.young'tiniversity chaplain in Krakow. His Srodowisko th e network of lay friends that had begun forming in 1948 at St. Florian s remained a significant part of his life. In August 2000, amidst all the other activity of the holy year, three generations of Srodowisko came to Castel Gandolfo for a visit. The children of Father Wojtyla s original young charges brought a kayak into the papal villa s courtyard, and thus the reunion was dubbed Dry Kayaks at Castel Gandolfo. The original plan was to meet for a half hour. In the event, the reimion-lasted three hours. Stanislaw Dziwisz tried to get the Pope to bed, but when Danuta Rybicka asked the Pope, Whom would you like to meet, W ujekv John Paul replied, All of them. Dziwisz said, But Holy Father,'they need to sleep ; the Pope waved him away. So everyone received a personal greeting and at the end they sang the song that had once closed each day on a kayaking trip. Dziwisz then said, Thank you, and good night At which point John Paul replied; I have to say good night to everyone and did so, with more than one hundred people. As Mrs. Rybicka remembered, when the Pope finally shuffled^jff into the villa, the third generation of Srodowisko, the small grandchildren of the original hikers and kayakers, followed him in a straggly line, like the Good Shepherd and the sheep. Four years later, John Paul was still saying, That was

165 374 T h e En d a n d t h e Be g in n in g beautiful, wliile the director of Castel Gandolfo told the Poles that he d never s^en anything like it in his decades of servide at the papal summer residence.' Three years after the dry kayaks, Krzysztof Rybicki, a veteran Srodowisko member, was struck wjth cancer. The Pope called him for a long conversation prior to majot surgery on January 6, 2003; and when Rybicki had'to return to the hospital in early March, John Paul called him on the dying mah s cell phone: Krzysiu,*do you remember how we used to sing darols together? We can sing togfether even now. And they did. Krzysztof Rybicki s widow, Maria, took her children and grandchildren to see the,pope at Christmas 2003; when the dinner conversation one night turnfed to a vacation trip they had made in 1957, John Paul II, the man who cherished the memory of his friendships, desdribed the trip in great detail, as if it had been a recent excursion, not something that had happened forty-six years before. f ' Stanislaw and Danuta Rybicki, two more of the/original members of what became Srodowisko, met W ujek for the last time, in -Januafy 2005, bringing along their ^anddaughter, Mela Rybicka, who was studying Hungarian philology. John Paul greeted the family and.then-said to Mela, Praised be Jesus Christ! in Hungarian. During" their conversation, the Pope had Mela sit ndxtto him and started querying her: Tell me what the "kids^re interested in today. That same month. Cardinal Camillo Ruini,»the Pope s vicar" for the Diocese of Rome, came to scathe Pope on business and John Paul asked, When are wd going to visit the parishes? Archbishop Dziwisz replied, Holy Father, the cardinal visits-the.parishes now. 'At which the Pope said, whimsically but jokingly, But I m the Bishop of Rome... It was. Cardinal Ruini remembered, another indication of how terribly.important it was for John Paul II to be able* to celebrate Mass "with the people of his diocese. At the end of the.pontificate', of the 336 parishes of the Diocese of RomeJ there were only 16 he had not -visited in persoiror in-vited to-mass in the Vatican. On January 24,2005, Jbhn Paul received a Spanish bishop on an ad limina visit. At the end of their conversation, the-spaniard began to get emotional and said something to the effect of Your Holiness, this is probablji the last time we will be seeing each other. To which the indomitable John Paul II replied, Why, what s the matter? Are you sick?. ^

166 T he Last Encyclical: January- A pril Th in k in g th e Tw en t-ie t h.c e n t u r y i A i j I In the^ummer of 1993, during his weeks at,caste^gandolfo,;jqhu Paul II had a lengthy series of conversations with the Polish'philosophers Jozef Tischner and K rzy s^f Michalski, who with the. Pope s encouragement had launched the'vienna-based In s titu tfu t die W issenschaften vom M ensc/ie«'[institute for Human Sciences] in The conversations^ which.were taped, began with questions probing the Pope s understanding of the meaning of the two,twentieth-century totalitariaif systems and their fau, but the discussion soon ranged widely over the modern, and postmodern political and cultural landscape. The tapes were transcribed, with the thought that the conversations might eventually make a book. After a lengthy and sporadic editorial* process that further broadened the analytic lens beyond Nazism nnd communism, M em ory and Identity: Personal Reflections, was published in February<2005 a^dstrongly reflected the Pope s concerns in the early to mid-1990s about the postcommunist situation ia central and eastern Europe. Yet thebook^also returr&d to perennial issues in Karol Wojtyla s intellectual work, and.in that respect was the fin^imovemeat in the unfinished symphony of Wojtyla s philosophy. During his years of teaching at the Catholic University of Lublin, Wojtyla had* come to the.view that the deficiencies of Enlightenment ethical theory were one root of the crisis of Western thought and culture. Putting moral theory on a firmer philosophical, base was. thus at the center of the intellectual project of Wojtyla and three other Lublin philosophers Father Tadeusz Styczen, S.D.S., Father Andrzej Szostek, M.I.C., and Dr. Wojciech Chudy. As the title of Chudy s habilitation thesis put it, iftodefn philosophy.had been caught in the trap of reflection, thinking about thinking-about-thinking, rather than thinking through to the truth of things. This was a particularly urgent problem for philot sophical, ethics, which needed a secure foundationjn the aftermath of the chasm, caused by David Hume. As philosophical realists, the Lublin quartet was determined to get to the moral truth of things through a careful analysis of things as.they are. Oughts, they were convinced, could indeed'be discerned from a penetrating analysis of is as when a careful study of the dynamics of human personhood discloses certain basic human rights that m ust be respected.

167 376 T h e En d a n d t h e Be g i n n in g Memory and Identity also revisited Wojtyla s critique-of both Kantian and utilitarian ethics as insufficient to provide a secure cultural foundation for the exercise of freedom. Freedom, John Paul insists, is both a gift and a task; thus.freedom rightly understood is not willfulness, n'or should free men and women be content with aiming for the greatest good of the greatest number. Rather, freedom is a gift (from God, believers contend) that is to be used to seek what we can know, objectively, to be good. That concept of freedom can be defended philosophically, John Paul argued. It is further illuminated, though, by the gift of faith, which helps us to see that God has given humanity a particular mission: to accomplish the truth about ourselves and our world... [in order to] be able to structure the visible world according to truth, correctly using it to serve our purposes, without abusing it. * John Paul Was at particular pains to emphasize that Europe is only Europe because of its evangelization: * Why do we begin our discussion of Europe by speaking of evangelization? Perhaps the simplest answer is that it was evangelization which formed Europe, giving birth to the civilization of its peoples and their cultures. As the faith spread throughout the continent, jt favored the formation of individual European peoples! sowing the seeds of'cultures different in character, but linked together by a patrimony of common values derived from, the Gospel. In this way the pluralism of national cultures developed upon a platfornl of values shared throughout the continent.*' Ihis was not to devalue the influence of the ancient world of Greece and Rome. Rather, it was to recognize how the Church had absorbed and transformed the older cultural patrimonyt The result of that transfofmation was the Christian universalism of the Middle Ages, during which Europe s evangelization seemed not only complete, but mature: not just in terms of philosophical and theological thought,* but also in sacred art and architecture, in social solidarity (guilds, confraternities^ hospitals). '* That universalism was overturned by the Reformation, the wars of religion, and the Enlightenment. And yet even the Enlightenment could not, and did not, invent Europe anew; its positive fruits, including the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternitj^ were based on values which are rooted in the Gospel. By the same token, the Enlightenment

168 T h e L a s t E n c y c l ic a l : Ja n u a r y - A p r il compelled the Church to a profound rediscovery of the truths contained in the Gospel, which was accomplished by modern Catholic social doctrine from Leo'XIII on. The recovery of its morahculture would be essential if the Europe 6f the future were to avoid the lethal errors of the Europe of the twentieth century, iri which, as John Paul reminded his conversation partners. Hitler had come to power through democratic means (which, to be sure, he promptly abrogated,'albeit with the consentof a' regularly elected parliament '^-Poland, he.believed,'had something important to share with-a Europe recovering from its twentieth-century wounds: the experience of a nation that had survived the totalitarian flail by moral* ahd cultural conviction; the experience of a country that had not experienced the wars of rehgion in the sixteenth century; the experience of a country in which the state did not claim to be Idng of its citizens consciences.''' M em ory und Identity was a powerful reminder that, for John Paul II, philosophy... leads you, to theology and Christology, as. the Italian scholar Rocco Buttiglione once put it.'. The proper starting point for understanding the human person, thepope insisted, must always be creatureliness: man s creation in the image and likeness of XTod. It is ultimately futile to try lo understand the human world, its strivings, and its passions by reference only to bther visible creatures, because such an approach neglects what is most distinctive about the human being: our being created according to the divine Prototype, the Word made flesh, the eternal Son of the Father. And so the p r im ^ and definitive source for getting to the truth inside the human person was, is, and always will be the Holy Trinity, that communion of self-giving love and receptivity in which the Law of the Gift is eternal reality.'* As in other writings, John Paul II was proposing that men and women raise, not lower, their sights. It is ultimately by looking up, not down and not simply aroimd, that human beings come to know the full trutji about our origins, nature, and destiny. History, he concluded, is not only horizontal; history has. a vertical d i mension, because' it is not only weiwho write our history God w rites it with us, and the deepest meaning of histofy goes beyond history and finds its full explanation in Christ, the God-man. We are embedded in time, and thus in mem'bry. Yet Christian hope projects itself beyond the limits of time Humanity is called to advance'beyond death,' even beyond time, towards the 4efinitive onset of eternity alongside the glorious Christ in the communion of the Trinity. Their hope is full of immortality

169 378 The End and the Beginning [Wisdom 3.4]'. In the time beyond time, memory and identity, purified, are ofie with the eternal. Some critics found M em ory and Identity excessively Polish; John Paul II, they argued,* was suggesting that there was some special providential design at work in Poland s.history and national identity. It was a familiar complaint and echoed other such criticisms throughout the pontificate, criticisms that sometimes reflected cultural and ethnic stereotypes, and sometimes emerged from uncritical assumptions about modernity and its ways. Against such critics. Father Richard John Neuhaus, one of John Paul s premier interpreters in the United States, described the book as provocatively wise, in an essay published shortly after the Pope s death: Against the airy abstractions -of secular modernity, John Paul displayed a way of being in the world that is formed by keeping faith with the memories, sufferings, and aspirations of a particular people. He was that rare thing: a whole man. The many dimensions of his interests, energies, gifts, and inspirations were all bf a piece. He refused modernity s imperious demand to choose between the universal and the particular, the world and his place in the world. Critics referred to him as the Polish pope, implying that he was parochial. Far from apologizing for who he'was, he invited others to h e thehest of who they are. It was as a son of Poland that he was a father to the world.*^ a I Th in k Th e y re Finally Be g in n in g to U n d e r st a n d H im According to Stanislaw Dziwisz, the suffering John Paul II endured during the last period of his hfe was not only physical, terrible as that was, but also spiritual: the suffering of a man compelled to suspend or even eliminate activities fhat*were part of his mission as universal shepherd. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger understood. In John Paul s life, the dean of the College of Cardinals said, the word cross is not just a word. ' < Karol Jozef Wojtyla,'Pope John Paul II, began to walk the way to Calvary for the last time on Sunday, January 30*, The Pope had difficulty

170 T h e L a s t E n c y c l ic a l : Ja n u a r y - A p r il <379 breathing during the 'Sunday Angelus address from the papal apartment window and, at first, it was thought that he had contracted the flu. But the situation worsened and quickly deteriorated into what the doctors described as acute laryngotracheitis aggravated by a laryngospasm in lay language, a throat infection that was causing spasms that made breathing very difficult. On January 31, the Holy See Press Office announced.that the day s audiences had been suspended. By dinnertime on February 1, the Pope was finding it harder and harder to breathe, and the decision was made, to take Jiim immediately tb the Policlinico Gemelli, where a special tenth-floor suite was always available in case he needed it. Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the Sostipito of the Secretariat of State, or papal chief of staff, met the struggling Pope in the Cortile Sesto Quinto at about 10 p.m., as John Paul was being led to an ambulancd, and asked, Holy Father, bless me. Gasping for breath, John Paul couldn t say the words of a blessing, but blessed Sandri silently.' The international media erupted in a frenzy of speculation about the Pope s imminent death, but John Paul s condition seemed to improve ovfer the next few days at the Gemelli, which, given his frequent stays, there, he jokingly referred to as Vatican III ( Vatican I being the Apostolic Palace and Vatican II being Castel Gandolfo). He returned to a modified official schedule, working from his hospital suite, and,on February 5 received Cardinal Ratzinger for their weekly meeting to discuss the business of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger later recalled the way in which John Paul Conducted his office from the hospital: The Pope suffered visibly, but he.was fully conscious and very much present. I had simply gone for a working'meeting, because I needed him to make a few'decisions. In spite of his suffering, thfe Holy Father paid close attention to what I was'saying. He explained his decisions to me^ in a few words, gave me hisblessing, and addressed his parting words to me in German, assuring me of his friendship and trust. John -Paul appeared at his hospital room window for the Angelus on Sunday, February 6; his message was read for him by Archbishop Sandri, with the Pope managing to articulate parts of the Angelus prayer and the sign of the cross. A flap ensued when some in the media suggested that what had seemed to be the Pope s voice was in fact a tape recording.

171 3 8 0 The End and the Beginning Joaquin Navarro-Valls denied the rumor that night, but the very fact that it spread so rapidly was an indication that at least some in the media were determined to follow their own story line the Pope is dying and the Vatican won t admit it rather than the facts at hand.>the abdication scenario, which seemed to have been at least temporarily buried, was resurrected the following day by some ill-conceived comments from the cardinal secretary of state, Angelo Sodano, who in off-the-cuff remarks to the press on February 7, said, when asked about the possibility of a papal resignation, If there is a man who loves the Church more than anybody else, who is guided by the Holy Spirit, if there is a man who has marvelous wisdom, that s him. We must have great faith in the Pope. He knows what to do. "' The cardinal s remarks were promptly, and not surprisingly, intefpreted as meaning that resignation or abdication was on the menu of possibilities, which it manifestly was not. ' Two days after this unnecessary controversy, John Paul II presided over a concelebrated Ma s of Ash Wednesday and received ashes from Archbishop Dziwisz, who nonetheless recalled that he felt extremely happy at how well the Pope seemed to be recovering. The dottors evidently agreed, for John Paul returned to the Vatican the next night. Gemelli patients lined the Pope s path applauding as he left; the Pope waved, climbed into the Popemobile, and was escorted during the five-mile trip back home to Vatican I by a motorcade and security guards on foot. The Romans by the thousands lined the streets between the Gemelli and the Vatican, and another crowd was waiting in St. Peter s Square to welcome him back. Prior to the motorcade, Navarro-Valls told the press that the acute laryngeal tracheitis had been cured'and that all the tests that had been administered, including a CAT scan, were negative."" The Pope was back in the papal-apartment window on Sunday, February 13, for the weekly Angelus, his message being read by Archbishop Sandri; John Paul managed a wave, a blessing, and a few brief words before giving way to the Sostituto. The Papal Lenten retreat began tjiatftay, preached by Bishop Renato Corti of Novara in the Italian Piedmont, on the theme The Church at the Service of the New and Everlasting Covenant ; it had been almost three.decades since Karol Wojtyla had preached the papal and curial retreat on the theme Sign pf Contradiction. As per the usual custom during the retreat, audiences were suspended."^ Prior to the retreat, important papal business continued: John-Paul accepted the resignation of the archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, appointing Archbishop

172 T h e La s t E n c y c l ic a l : Ja n u a r y - A p r il Andre Vingt-Trois of Tdiirs as Lustiger s successor.^'* On the day after the retreat began, the Pope sent a message of condolence to Portuguese bishop Albino Mamede Cleto of Coimbra on the death of Sister Lucia dos Santos, the last of the Fatima visionaries, who had died on February 13 at age ninety-seven. Sister lucia, the Pope wrote, bequeaths to us an example of great fidehty to thelord and joyous.attachment.t6 his divine will... I have always felt supported by the daily gift ofther prayers, Especially during the most difficult moments of trial and suffering. May the Lord reward her for her great and hidden'service to the Church. John Paul managed to lead the praying of the Angelus and to deliver his own Angelus message on Simday, February 20, looking relatively robust to-the crowds in St. Peters Square.'The day before, he had resumed holding audiences, receiving the seventy-seven-year-old Emmaniiel III Delly, Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, whose people continued to suffer persecution ffom Islaihist terrorists in Iraq; and Bishop Renato Corti, whom he thanked for preaching fhe Lenten retreat. Yet the Popes breathing difficulties continued, as the stiffening of his chest muscles due to the Parkinson s disease made it difficult for him to inhale. Another crisis struck on Wednesday evening, February 23. At dinner that evening-, as Stanislaw Dziwisz recalled later, the Pope s body was convulsed by a new crisis; he was almost asphyxiating. Cardinal Marian Jaworski, Karol. Wojtylas old housemate andifellow philosopher, now the Latin-rite archbishop, of L viv in Ukraine, was a dinner guest that evening and immediately gave his old friend the Sacrament of the Sick, anointing him in thfe papal apartment."* The Pope returned ta the GemeUi the following day, where his personal physician. Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, decided that a tracheotomy had to be performed to auow the Pope to breathe more easily and to avoid another episode of near suffocatipn. John Paul asked whether the operation couldn t be postponed until the summer houdays; the reaction from Buzzonetti and the other physicians. Archbishop Dziwisz recalled, immediately persuaded the Pope that a delay untfi the summer was not an option-. Dr. Buzzonetti assured John Paul that it will be a simple operation. True to form, the Pope parried back, Simple for whom? The tracheotomy was performed successfully, but it was only afterward, Dziwisz remembered, that John Paul concretely realized what the doctors had meant when they had told him that the operation would render him mute for a time. The Pope signaled to Dziwisz that he wanted something on which to write, and then scrawled, What have they done to me?! But... totus tuus chagrin

173 382 The End and the Beginning combined with yet another sign of Karol Wojtyla s determination to bend his will to Gods under the protection of the Virgin Mary.^^ During his two and a half weeks at the'gemelh his second hospitalization in a month John Paul II continued to-rely on Archbishop Sandri as his voice, with Sandri leading the Angelus and-delivering the Pope s AngelUs< message in St. Peter s Square on February 27 and Maifch 6, while the Pope offered a blessing from the window of his hospital suite. Sandri led the Angelus from the Gemelli on'march 13, with the Pope m anaging a few remarks to the crowd gathered there and to those who could see him via television on large screens in St. Peter s.square.^ The Sostituto remembered being powerfully impressed by the Pope s humility in having me read his words. I blessed the people in his name, and I saw John Paul II humbly niaking the sign of the cross as he received what amounted to his own blessing through me. ^. John Paul began daily business meetings in his hospital suite less than s week after the tracheotomy, meeting -with Sandri, Secretary of State Sodano, Cardinal Ratzinger, and Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.^ The Pope concelebrated Mass with Archbishop Dziwisz and others every day; at noon on March 9, shortly after the Mass was completed, John Paul, Wearing the purple chasuble of the Lenten season, gave an impromiftu blessing to the hundreds who were waiting-otitside the Gemelli in an ongoing and spontaneous.prayer vigil.f Two daystater, oii March 11, John Paul concelebrated Mass m th Cardinal Polycarp Pengo and Bishop Severine Niwemugizi of Tanzania, who were in Rome for the iid lim ina visit; his visitors were in tears, moved by the Pope s continuing breathing difficulties, his determination, and his composure. ^. At the Angelus on March 13, John Paul II thanked the media for their presence and attention, because of which the faithful in'every part of the world can feel that I am cfoser and can accompany me with their affection and prayers. ^^ That evening,, the Pope'was driven "back to the^vatican, through another throng of cheering Romans, some in ranks ten deep along the streets. The backs of his»hands were-deeply discolored from* the injections and intravenous lines. Archbishop Sandri remernbered, and the Pope was trembling with the chill. Yet that'physical disfigurement'and-weakness was, Sandri said, the Gospel of the silent mystery* of his friendship with'godjor the salvation 'of the world his silent Mass with God. ^'' Three close observers of the pontificate the Polish'ambassador to the

174 T h e La s t E n c y c l ic a l : Ja n u a r y - A p r il Holy Se4 Hanna* Suchocka, the Canadian writet Raymond de Souza, arid the physicist Piotr-Malecki, Karol Wojtyla s first altar hoy.at St. Florians Church'iri Krakow and'a Srodowisko veteran caught something of the extraordinary reaction to Jrihn Paul s courage ip. subfering in, several well-chosen phrases. Ihi's was,.ambassador Suchocka said, his via cruz cis, and if some-parts of the jnedia could-not quite grasp that or understand it, the people who came.to the Gemelli and who cheered the. frail Pope on his way back to the Vatican had an inkling of it, and wanted to share in it and support him. At the same time. Father de Souz wrote, this was not a deathwatch, but a lifewatch, in which ^the Church was bdng invited to live this moment together \yith her chief shepherd. The reflectiori, contemplation, and prayer that John Paul a struggles to continue his mission elicited from the people of theichurch were not something to pass the time until the Church jcan get back to \^aork they are the work of the. Church. Dr. Malecki s comment was.succinct and to-the point; I think they re finally beginning to understand him. ^ *< i The Final Statio n s John Paul had come back to the.vatican to die*, for it was riow as clear as such things could be that the end w is at handi and he-.wanted.to die in what had become his home, as close as possible to the bonds of Peter. For the first time in twenty-sbc.years, John Paul. ^as. unable to lead the Church s Holy. Week liturgies in person. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, tjie papal vicar for Rome, took the Palm Sunday Massrin St. Peter>.^uare, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re celebrated-the Chrism Mass oh Holy Thursday, and Cardinal* Alfonso Lopez Trujillo celebrated the Mass of the Lord s Supper in St. Peter s that evening. Cardinal James Francis Stafford presided at the Good Friday, commemoration of.the Lord s-passion in St. Peter s, arid Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led.the^ Way of the Cross that evening at the Colosseum and presided at the Great Vigiljaf Easter imthe Vatican basilica on Holy Saturday night. Cardinal Angelo Sodano*took the outdoor Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter s Square.. At each of the major Holy Week liturgies, a message from the.pope was read by the cardinal presiding? On Palm Sunday, the Pope had appeared in the window of the papal

175 384 The End and the Beginning apartment after the Mass had concluded, and used an olive branch to bless the crowd in the square; once again. Archbishop Sandri was the voice of the Pope s Angelus message. Now, John Paul badly wanted to speak to the Easter throng in the square on March 27 and to give the Urbi et Orbi blessing. But it-was not to be. He had practiced speaking for days beforehand, but when the moment came, nothing would come out. Stanislaw Dziwisz recalled the drama of the moment: [T]he Pope stood motionless in the window, as if frozen. He. must have been overwhelmed by a combination of emotion and pain. In any case, he couldn t give the blessing. He whispered, My voice is gone. Then, still silent, he made the sign of thd cross three times, waved to the crowd, and gestured that he wanted to withdraw. He was deeply'shaken and saddened. He also seemed exhausted by his unsuccessful attempt to speak The people in the square were full of emotion; they were applauding him and calling out his name, but he felt the whole weight of the powerlessness and suffering he had displayed. He looked into my eyes and said, Maybe it would be better for me to die if I cant fulfill the mission that has been entrusted to me. Before I could answer, he added, Thy will be done... ftotus tuus. ^^ John Paul tried again, when 5,000 youngsters from Milan came to the square on Wednesday, March 30 the day it was announced that the Pope had be'en given a nasal feeding tube. Dziwisz tried to convince him to simply give his blessing, but he wanted to say something, even if it was just a word, to thank the kids. So he indicated that the microphone should be brou ght closer. But, once again, he couldn t get a word out. This time, Dziwisz recalled, he didn t even show the impatience that he had displayed at Easte'r. By this^oint, he knew. He was ready^^^ The twelfth station of the* Via Crucii of Pope John Paul II, the station at Calvary, began at 11 a.m. on March 31. While he was preparing to concelebrate Mass in the pajjalapartment s chapel, his body was jolted as if something had exploded inside him, as Archbishop Dziwisz put it later. Septic shock, caused by a urinary tract infection, had set in; the Pope s temperature was 104 degrees and his cardiovascular system was in couapse. Dziwisz reminded Dr. Buzzonetti of the Pope s desire to die in the Vatican, so John Paul was taken to his room,-where, in his bed, he could look

176 T h e L a s t E n c y c l ic a l : Ja n u a r y - A pr il on images of the/suffering Christ and of the Black Madonna, Our Lady olcz^stochowa, as well as the small photographs of his parents that had lon^.b'een there. Mass was said at the Pope s bedside in the evening, and John Paul managed to raise his hand at the words-of consecrktion over the bread and wine, and to strike his breast at the Agnus Dei. He received holy tommunion at 7:17. p.m.. and y^as once again given the Sacrament of the Sick by Cardinal Marian'JawoLski. The household sisters, his secretaries, the doctors and nurses all came to^the bedside to kiss the Popes hand, and John Paul managed to whisper each, ones, name. The day ended with a holy hour of reflection and prayer, at the Pope s, request; it concluded.with the household-sisters singing.^ Friday, April 1, was a day.df prayer, Dziwisz recalled. The Pope concelebrated Mass and prayed both the Stations of thq Cross and the hours of the Divine Office irorn^ his bed; passages from the Bible were.read to him by his old friend Father-Tadeusz Styczeh. He could say only a few syllables, and even that was difficult, according to Dziwisz.'*' Senior churchmen came to say good-bye, and the Pope insisted on thanking Francesco, the man responsible fdr cleaning his apartment. At.an evening Mass for the Diocese of Rome at-st. John Lateran, Cardinal Ruini told the crowds that the end was hear, and that the Pope could already see and touch the Lord. "* On April 2, John Paul managed ta bless, icon crowns that would be placed on the image of.our Lady of Czestochowa in the Vatican grotto and others that would be sent to the Jasna Cora monastery in Czestochowa itself. After he had tried for some time to say soihething, those in his immediate papal family finally understood that he had a message for the young people who were keeping vigiljn the square outside his window^ I have sought you out. Nowjyou have come to me. I thank you. Father Styczen read aloud to him from the Gospel of St. John somethihg he. had done for himself,.;a chapter each day, during.his graduate student days in Rome; Styczen got through the ninth chapter before the end.-*^ Sister Tobiana, who had worked with John Paul for decades, heard his last words. The Pope was looking at her, so she came to the bedside and leaned over, placing Tier, ear near his mouth. In the weakest of voices, he made his last request: TLet me go to the Father s house. At about 7 P.M., John Paul II slipped into a coma, and, according to Polish custom, a small candle was fit and placed in the window of the

177 3 8 6 The End and the Beginning bedroom. Two'hours later, Archbishop Dziwisz felt a kind of imperative command inside me and began to celebrate Mass for the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave of Easter, with Cardinal Jaworski, Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko (a Cracovian priest who was president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity), Father Styczen, and the junior secretary, Msgr. Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki. The appointed Gospel reading for the day seemed especially appropriate the appearance of the Risen Christ to the apostles on the first Easter night, and the greeting, Peace be with you (John 20.19). Dziwisz was able to give the Pope a few drops of the blood of Christ as Viaticum, the food for the journey. At 9:37 P.M., the monitor display showed that the heart of John Paul II had stopped beating. Dr. Buzzonetti leaned over the Pope and then said to those present, Hes gone home to the Lord. Karol Wojtyla s earthly pilgrimage was complete. The concelebrants and the Polish sisters, as if we had all agreed beforehand, spontaneously sang the Church s ancient hymn of thanksgiving, the Te D eum, while crying tears of grief and joy at the same time. ''^ Archbishop Sandri, having been called by Archbishop Dziwisz, came into the bedroom a few minutes after the Pope died, while the electrocardiogram was still running, to confirm the death. As Sandri later recalled. Sister Tobiana was kneeling beside the bed with her hand nesthng the Pope s head; John Paul s arms were outstretched in. the form of the cross, and his face was utterly peaceful. Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Sodano, Cardinal Ruini, Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo (the Camerlengo, or chamberlain, of the Church), and Archbishop James Harvey (the prefect of the papal household) came in next. Sandri, who was to make the worldwide public announcement in St. Peter s Square, didn t know what to say and was upset and confused in finding his way through the Apostolic Palace, whose halls he knew as well 'as anyone. When he arrived in the square, however, the words just came out: our beloved Holy Father has gone home to the Father s house. Cardinal Ruini, as vicar, formally announced to the people of Rome the death of their bishop on the evening of April 2: Let us thank God for having given us a Pastor after his own heart, a witness to Jesus Christ in his life and with his words. May the,blessed Virgin Mary, Ruini concluded, clasp him in her Mother s arms and protect the people of Rome. ''^ The body of John Paul II remained in the chapel of the papal apartment overnight, in the presence of the eucharistic Christ and watched over by