On his feast day, we must invoke the aid of John Paul II for ourChurch and our country, writes Joanna Bogle
He was brought up by a single parent, lost a brother while still young, and endured a savage invasion of his country and years of totalitarian rule. At the end of his teens, he had lost all of his immediate family. The universities of his country had all been closed. He had no settled home. Under wartime conditions he became a forced-labourer in a quarry.
This sounds like a recipe for a broken life. But Karol Wojtyła had been trained by his widowed father in the virtues of fortitude and patience, and in habits of faithful prayer, and had inherited a rich tradition of faith. He went on to become a priest, bishop, and one of the greatest Popes in modern times.
On 22nd October, the feast day of St John Paul II, and in the year that marks the 40th anniversary of his visit to Britain, we should not only thank God for him, but invoke his aid for the Church and for our country at this time.
Things feel bleak and uncertain in the Church today. What might St John Paul the Great say about the whole project of the Synod and Synodality? He was certainly a good listener, and ready to hear people’s ideas and opinions. The young people who joined him on hiking and camping trips in the Polish countryside did so precisely because they could talk to him about their concerns, their worries, their hopes and plans. He was open and approachable as a Bishop – people knew they could arrive at the episcopal residence in Cracow and gain practical help and advice. He was, and always remained, approachable and friendly. But central to all of this was something deeper – he was also a man who knew of the sacred priority of truth, and understood at a deep level the role and duty of the Church in communicating that truth, and the specific task of a Bishop within that.
As Pope, St John Paul listened. He brought to the office of Peter the insights of a philosopher and the keen brain of a theologian, a linguist, a poet, playwrite and professor. He was a teacher and a man of prayer. His deep understanding of the nature of the Church had been honed by his experience as a Council Father at the Second Vatican Council and by the example of great men like Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński who as Primate of Poland had led the Church with courage and resilience through grim times.
He understood that by listening it is possible to discover where people can be confused and where they need to be instructed and led. People can be badly mistaken. They can be badly taught, or influenced by powerful voices in the media or in well-funded lobby groups. They can be swept up in a fashionable ideology, or trapped in the slogans of some fashionable mantra.
St John Paul corrected error with courage, and insistently and passionately emphasised the importance of truth, and the Church as guardian of truth. The Faith must be cherished, nurtured and defended, and passed on to each new generation in its fullness and integrity. The name of his great encyclical expressed this with beauty and strength “Veritatis splendor” – the spledour of Truth.
We should invoke his intercesssion from Heaven as the crisis over the German bishops, and the confusion over the whole question of synods and synodality, encroach on the Church’s life and mission over the next weeks and months. Argument, especially concerning the Church’s teaching on sexual integrity and marriage will waste a lot of time – time that should be devoted to urgent missionary work and evangelisation.
May the prayers of the great St John Paul earn for our present Pope the blessings of wisdom, courage and humility so that he can withstand the pressures that may be heaped upon him, stand firm for the truth, and defend that Church’s teachings with courage.
And we might also invoke St John Paul’s prayers for our country, as we recognise increasing loss of our Christian traditions on marriage and family, and the subsequent breakdown in a sense of shared community values. As he arrived here, he summed up the significance of the moment: “For the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil”. May his prayers bring blessings on our land as we recall that visit.
Saint John Paul, pray for us. Pray for Pope Francis. Pray for the Church you loved and served so well. Pray for the lands you visited on your great missionary journeys. Pray for us.
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