Saint John Paul II, Saint of the day for 22 October

Saint of the day for October 22th
(May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005)

The story of St. John Paul II

"Open the doors to Christ", exhorted John Paul II during the homily of the Mass where he was installed as pope in 1978.

Born in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Jozef Wojtyla had lost his mother, father and older brother before his 21st birthday. Karol's promising academic career at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow was cut short by the outbreak of World War II. While working in a quarry and chemical factory, he enrolled in an "underground" seminar in Krakow. Ordained a priest in 1946, he was immediately sent to Rome where he obtained a doctorate in theology.

Back in Poland, a short post as assistant pastor in a rural parish preceded his fruitful chaplaincy for university students. Soon p. Wojtyla earned a doctorate in philosophy and began teaching that subject at the Polish University of Lublin.

Communist officials allowed Wojtyla to be appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958, considering him a relatively harmless intellectual. They couldn't have been more wrong!

Monsignor Wojtyla attended all four sessions of Vatican II and contributed in a particular way to its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world. Appointed archbishop of Krakow in 1964, he was appointed cardinal three years later.

Elected pope in October 1978, he took the name of his immediate short-lived predecessor. Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. Over time he made pastoral visits to 124 countries, several of which with small Christian populations.

John Paul II promoted ecumenical and interreligious initiatives, in particular the Day of Prayer for Peace in 1986 in Assisi. He visited the main synagogue in Rome and the Western Wall in Jerusalem; it also established diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel. He improved Catholic-Muslim relations and in 2001 he visited a mosque in Damascus, Syria.

The Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, a key event in John Paul's ministry, was marked by special celebrations in Rome and elsewhere for Catholics and other Christians. Relations with the Orthodox Churches improved considerably during his pontificate.

"Christ is the center of the universe and of human history" was the opening line of John Paul II's 1979 encyclical, Redeemer of the human race. In 1995, he described himself to the United Nations General Assembly as "a witness of hope".

His visit to Poland in 1979 encouraged the growth of the Solidarity movement and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe 10 years later. John Paul II started World Youth Day and went to different countries for those celebrations. He very much wanted to visit China and the Soviet Union, but the governments of those countries prevented him.

One of the most remembered photos of John Paul II's pontificate was his personal conversation in 1983 with Mehmet Ali Agca, who had attempted to assassinate him two years earlier.

In his 27 years of papal ministry, John Paul II wrote 14 encyclicals and five books, canonized 482 saints and beatified 1.338 people. In the last years of his life he suffered from Parkinson's disease and was forced to cut down some of his activities.

Pope Benedict XVI beatified John Paul II in 2011 and Pope Francis canonized him in 2014.

Reflection

Before John Paul II's funeral mass in St. Peter's Square, hundreds of thousands of people had patiently waited for a short moment to pray before his body, which for several days lay in state inside St. Peter's. Media coverage of his funeral was unprecedented.

Presiding over the funeral mass, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then dean of the College of Cardinals and later Pope Benedict XVI, concluded his homily by saying: "None of us will ever forget how, on that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, returned to the window of the Apostolic Palace and for the last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi (“to the city and to the world”).

“We can be sure that our beloved pope is standing at the window of the Father's house today, seeing us and blessing us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you every day and who will now guide you to the glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.