Father's Reflection 4.2.23

Poland, Part III

For 26 years John Paul II served the Church as Vicar of Christ with distinction and grace.  Most of us knew him to be someone special during his lifetime, but few of us recognized just how special, until after his death in 2005.  Our recent pilgrimage to Poland helped to reveal just how this greatness came about.  And it all has to do with pressure.  It is said that the most beautiful diamonds in the world are forged under remarkable pressure.  And it is precisely this pressure which leads to such exquisite beauty.  Something very similar occurred with Karol Wojtyla – the future Pope St. John Paul II.  As a child, he lost his mother the week of his First Holy Communion.  In second grade.  In high school he lost his only brother.  And then in college he lost his father.  Friends, that is remarkable pressure which providence allowed his soul to endure.  And it led to exquisite beauty.  Add to this personal suffering the horror of World War II, the Nazi’s, the Holocaust, and then later, the Iron Curtain.  And what you have is a life filled with remarkable pressure.  But every step of the way, grace and the Divine Assistance were at work.  More on this next week.