One Step Closer

Copyright: L'Osservatore Romano" style="width:204px;height:300px;float:right;" >THE SALIENT features of Karol Wojtyla’s life and of his pontificate are well-known to our readers, as well as his close links to our current pontiff.



Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was a close friend of Karol Wojtyla since the days of the Second Vatican Council. During that watershed event, Wojtyla and Ratzinger were the two young stars of the Council. Ratzinger, then 35, was theological consultant to the archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings, and with his suggestions was able to give valuable contributions to the Council. Wojtyla, then a young bishop, surprised everyone with his discourses and, after the Council, was chosen as a collaborator to Pope Paul VI.



On becoming pope, Wojtyla conferred on Cardinal Ratzinger a very important position, that of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – effectively making him his right-hand man on all matters concerning the spiritual guidance of the Church.





Close friendship





In his last book, Memory and Identity, Pope John Paul II was to refer to Cardinal Ratzinger as a “most dear friend”. The only instance in which the Polish Pope wrote such words about one of his collaborators.  



It was this ‘most dear friend’ of Pope John Paul II who presided over his funeral, in his capacity as Dean of the College of Cardinals, on April 8, 2005, at St Peter’s Square.



During that ceremony, attended by the world’s leading statesmen and by an immense crowd, with millions of people throughout the world following the event on TV, mourners held signs and chanted ‘santo subito’ meaning ‘a saint immediately’.



Then, on 19 April, 2005, Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to the Throne of Peter, and one of his first acts as Pope Benedict XVI was to place the canonisation process of his illustrious predecessor on a fast track.



Now the Code of Canon Law lays down that the beatification process for any candidate to sainthood is to begin only five years after the candidate’s death. In this specific case, however, Benedict waived this rule. The result is that John Paul’s beatification is the fastest on record, coming just six years after his death, and beating out Mother Teresa’s then-record beatification in 2003 by a few days.





Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre





The process of beatification also requires that the candidate intercede for a miracle, but before a miracle can be acknowledged as authentic by the Church, it must first be scrutinised by a scientific committee of renowned medical doctors. In the documents sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Monsignor Sławomir Oder, postulator of the Cause, has included information regarding 251 possible miracles attributed to the Polish Pope’s intercession.



Among the possible miracles, the one experienced by a French nun appeared truly extraordinary. After careful examination by the scientific committee, it was decided that, from a strictly scientific and medical point of view, the nun’s healing was wholly inexplicable.



The nun in question is Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, a member of the Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity Wards. Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre was afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, the same condition that plagued John Paul II in the last years of his life.



In a detailed written report prepared for Monsignor Sławomir Oder, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre describes how the miracle happened.





Terrible predicament





“I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in June 2001… The condition affected the whole of the left side of my body, and was a source of serious difficulties for me as I am left-handed… After three years, my situation had worsened; I had tremors, stiffness, pains, insomnia…”



In her predicament, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre sought comfort through spiritual union with the Pope, who was suffering from exactly the same condition. And when the Pope died, she experienced a feeling of immense loss. She now felt completely abandoned, and consequently decided to let herself waste away and die.  



“From 2 April, 2005 (the day the Pope died), my situation deteriorated rapidly: I began to lose weight; I was no longer able to write, and if I tried to, my writing was practically illegible…”



At this point her fellow Sisters decided to seek the intercession of Pope John Paul II, and in all the convents of the Congregation the nuns prayed for her healing.



“By the first day of that month [June] my endurance had been stretched to the limit. Even to stand up was a struggle. On June 2 I asked my Superior to exempt me from all duties. ‘But John Paul has not said his last words yet’ she replied. She then gave me a fountain pen and told me to write down the words: John Paul II. I was hardly able to do so, and we both stood silently for some time looking at the horribly scrawled words…





Pick up your pen





“That evening, after communal prayer, I went back to my room. Once there I felt someone telling me, ‘Pick up your fountain pen and write’.… My handwriting was now quite readable, much to my surprise! I lay down on my bed, astonished. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning, and was surprised that I had managed to sleep. I then got up: my body was no longer numb, no stiffness anywhere…. This was on June 3, the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. I went down to the church and remained in adoration for a long time. I felt great inner peace and a deep sense of well-being… At 6 am I decided to join my fellow Sisters. To do so I had to walk some 50 meters, and while doing so I felt a sense of agility I had not known for a long time.



“I was healed… My hand was no longer trembling. I was able to write again with the same precision I had once; I no longer felt any of the symptoms of the disease. I went to the neurologist who had been curing me for the past four years, and he performed a thorough check-up on me. He was quite surprised to find that all the symptoms of the disease had vanished.”



Besides that of Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, there are probably many other people who have received miracles from our late Pope. However, to avoid the risk of restricting our view to merely physical phenomena, we should broaden our understanding of what a ‘miracle’ really is. In this sense, the pontificate of Pope John Paul II itself could be seen a miracle, for the greatest miracle Karol Wojtyla performed was to restore a sense of Christian possibility in a world that had largely consigned Christian conviction to the margins of history. Yet all these miracles, in the final analysis, were due to Karol Wojtyla’s particular type of sainthood.





Types of sainthood





Is it possible to pinpoint the essence of Karol Wojtyla’s sainthood?



Cardinal José Martin Saraiva, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, for instance, believes that Wojtyla’s sainthood manifested itself mainly in “his love for people and in his faith”. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, on the other hand, sees our late Pope’s sainthood in the “intensity and depth of his prayer-life”.



Others have different perceptions. Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai and President of the Catholics Bishops’ Conference of India, believes that Karol Wojtyla’s sainthood lies in his “commitment to charity and love towards all, especially in favour of the poor, ” while Monsignor Sławomir Oder identifies it in “his love for the Eucharist”.



Pope Benedict XVI has spoken widely about his predecessor’s sainthood. During a memorial mass in his honour at St Peter’s on April 2, 2008, Benedict said, “We can truly interpret the whole life of my beloved Predecessor, particularly his Petrine ministry, in the sign of the Risen Christ. He had an extraordinary faith in him and carried on an unusual and uninterrupted conversation with him. Indeed, among his many human and supernatural qualities he possessed exceptional spiritual and mystic sensibilities. It was enough to see him praying: he literally immersed himself in God and it seemed that in those moments everything else was foreign to him. At liturgical celebrations he was attentive to the mystery-in-action, showing an outstanding ability to grasp the eloquence of God’s Word in the development of history, at the profound level of God’s plan. As he often said, Holy Mass for him was the centre of every day, and every day of his life. The ‘living and holy’ reality of the Eucharist gave him the spiritual energy to guide the People of God on their journey through history.”



These “exceptional spiritual and mystic sensibilities,” and his “uninterrupted conversation” with God, places the Polish Pope alongside the great saints of history.





Extraordinary devotion





Karol Wojtyla’s biography reveals an innate intimacy with God. As a university student, when he had decided to leave the world and consecrate his whole life to God, he made plans to become a cloistered monk and lead a contemplative life – a life of constant prayer. It was cardinal Sapieha, Archbishop of Krakow, who prophetically pointed out to him that God could have other plans for him. “The Polish Church,” the Archbishop said, “needs people like you, and one day the Universal Church may also need you”.



Wojtyla’s attraction for the contemplative life remained, however. After ordination the Polish priest was sent to Rome to specialise in theology and, pandering to his penchant for the contemplative life, dedicated his thesis to ‘The Doctrine of Faith According to Saint John of the Cross’, the great Spanish mystic of the 16^th century.



When Wojtyla was informed by Cardinal Wyszynski, the Primate of Poland, that Pope Pius XII had nominated him bishop, he immediately went to the convent of Ursuline Sisters close to the bishop’s residence in Warsaw. When one of the Sisters opened the door he asked the way to the chapel. As soon as he entered the chapel he knelt on the pew right in front of the tabernacle, and remained there in prayer. A Sister recognised him and said to her fellow Sisters, “That is Professor Wojtyla, the famous poet and playwright, professor at the University of Lublin”. The Superior then invited him dinner, but Wojtyla replied, “My train leaves for Rome after midnight. I must remain here because there are many things I still have to say to the Lord,” and he remained kneeling there for a further eight hours!



As Archbishop of Krakow he had a special chair built – it was a chair that was like a pew at the same time. This pew-chair was placed in his private chapel, at the side of the tabernacle. The pew-chair enabled him to write and pray at the same time. In this way he was able to spend considerable time in front of the tabernacle.



But even as Pope he would spend a lot of time praying in his private chapel. He did this most often during the evenings, after dinner. John Paul often prayed in the Slavic way – that is by lying on the floor with arms outstretched to form a cross. His collaborators often found him in that position, in a state of ecstasy contemplating heavenly matters.





Private ceremony





As May 1 draws near, the city of Rome is in feverish activity preparing for the great event. Up to three million pilgrims from all over the world – including an estimated 700,000 Poles – are expected to throng the Eternal City on that day. The last event of this magnitude was John Paul II’s funeral in April 2005 when, according to the Italian Department of Civil Protection, more than three million people were present in Italy’s capital city.



Works are underway to transfer Pope John Paul’s body. In fact, after the beatification ceremony his remains, currently located in the Vatican Grottos, will be exposed in front of the Altar of the Confession for the veneration of the faithful, and will remain there until the last devotee has left St Peter’s. Then, in a private ceremony, our late pontiff’s body will be transferred to a new tomb in the Chapel of Saint Sebastian, between the chapel which houses Michelangelo’s famous Pietà and the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, a more than fitting location for a pope who had extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady.



After the beatification, the Polish Pope, one of the most popular and loved in history, is now one step closer to being declared a saint. However, knowing John Paul’s love for people in need, and the great affection that everybody has for him, it won’t be long before another outstanding miracle assures that John Paul II will be venerated as a saint.







THREE DAY CELEBRATION



·         The celebrations will run from April 30 to May 2, with the beatification itself taking place on May 1. For most events no tickets are required and all are welcome.



·         The festivities will begin with a prayer vigil in the massive open field of the Circus Maximus – where the ancient Romans once held chariot races – on the evening of April 30. The vigil will begin at 8:00 pm and is led by Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome. Pope Benedict joins the gathering by way of a video link.



·         The beatification ceremony will begin on Sunday, May 1, at 10:00 am at St Peter’s Square. No tickets are required to participate in the event. Immediately following the beatification ceremony, the remains of Pope John Paul II will be placed in front of the Altar of the Confession in St Peter’s Basilica for the veneration of the faithful. The Basilica will remain open to pilgrims for as long as the faithful continue to arrive.



·         On the following day, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, will preside over a Mass of Thanksgiving at 10:30 am in St Peter’s Square.



·         After the celebrations, the remains of John Paul II will privately be re-interred in the Chapel of St Sebastian inside the Basilica of St Peter.