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A Year with John Paul II: Daily Meditations from His Writings and Prayers – The Beloved Pilgrim Pope's Teachings for Spiritual Life and Catholic Faith
Called the Pilgrim Pope, a pope of the people, John Paul II connected with his flock from the highest to the lowest. He was one of history's most beloved popes among Catholics and non-Catholics alike, a man whose indomitable spirit touched and taught us all. A Year with John Paul II showcases his most important teachings as well as his inspirational writings, in a daily devotional format that will inspire readers and deepen their reflections and meditations. With a foreword by Cardinal William W. Baum, head of the Holy See's Major Penitentiary and former archbishop of Washington DC, an introduction by Bishop William Murphy, and a moving eulogy composed for the pope's funeral by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), A Year with John Paul II will take readers on a year-long spiritual journey with this deeply religious and inspiring man. Karol Wojyla was born on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland. He survived the Nazi occupation during World War II and was ordained to the priesthood in 1946. He was appointed archbishop of Krakow by Pope Paul VI. On October 16, 1978, he ascended to the papacy, taking the name John Paul II. During his papacy he greeted an estimated sixteen million pilgrims at the Vatican's general audiences. Pope John Paul II died in April 2005.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Pope John Paul II
1,053 books665 followersSaint Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła was elected Pope at the Conclave of 16 October 1978, and he took the name of John Paul II. On 22 October, the Lord's Day, he solemnly inaugurated his Petrine ministry as the 263rd successor to the Apostle. His pontificate, one of the longest in the history of the Church, lasted nearly 27 years.
Driven by his pastoral solicitude for all Churches and by a sense of openness and charity to the entire human race, John Paul II exercised the Petrine ministry with a tireless missionary spirit, dedicating it all his energy. He made 104 pastoral visits outside Italy and 146 within Italy. As bishop of Rome he visited 317 of the city's 333 parishes.
He had more meetings than any of his predecessors with the People of God and the leaders of Nations. More than 17,600,000 pilgrims participated in the General Audiences held on Wednesdays (more than 1160), not counting other special audiences and religious ceremonies [more than 8 million pilgrims during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 alone], and the millions of faithful he met during pastoral visits in Italy and throughout the world. We must also remember the numerous government personalities he encountered during 38 official visits, 738 audiences and meetings held with Heads of State, and 246 audiences and meetings with Prime Ministers.
His love for young people brought him to establish the World Youth Days. The 19 WYDs celebrated during his pontificate brought together millions of young people from all over the world. At the same time his care for the family was expressed in the World Meetings of Families, which he initiated in 1994. John Paul II successfully encouraged dialogue with the Jews and with the representatives of other religions, whom he several times invited to prayer meetings for peace, especially in Assisi.
Under his guidance the Church prepared herself for the third millennium and celebrated the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 in accordance with the instructions given in the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio adveniente. The Church then faced the new epoch, receiving his instructions in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio ineunte, in which he indicated to the faithful their future path.
With the Year of the Redemption, the Marian Year and the Year of the Eucharist, he promoted the spiritual renewal of the Church. He gave an extraordinary impetus to Canonizations and Beatifications, focusing on countless examples of holiness as an incentive for the people of our time. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies during which he proclaimed 1,338 Blesseds; and 51 canonizations for a total of 482 saints. He made Thérèse of the Child Jesus a Doctor of the Church.
He considerably expanded the College of Cardinals, creating 231 Cardinals (plus one in pectore) in 9 consistories. He also called six full meetings of the College of Cardinals. His most important Documents include 14 Encyclicals, 15 Apostolic Exhortations, 11 Apostolic Constitutions, 45 Apostolic Letters. He promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the light of Tradition as authoritatively interpreted by the Second Vatican Council. He also reformed the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law, created new Institutions and reorganized the Roman Curia.
In the light of Christ risen from the dead, on 2 April 2005 at 9.37 p.m., while Saturday was drawing to a close and the Lord's Day was already beginning, the Octave of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church's beloved Pastor, John Paul II, departed this world for the Father. On April 1, 2011, he was raised to the glory of the altars and on April 27, 2014 canonized.
Driven by his pastoral solicitude for all Churches and by a sense of openness and charity to the entire human race, John Paul II exercised the Petrine ministry with a tireless missionary spirit, dedicating it all his energy. He made 104 pastoral visits outside Italy and 146 within Italy. As bishop of Rome he visited 317 of the city's 333 parishes.
He had more meetings than any of his predecessors with the People of God and the leaders of Nations. More than 17,600,000 pilgrims participated in the General Audiences held on Wednesdays (more than 1160), not counting other special audiences and religious ceremonies [more than 8 million pilgrims during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 alone], and the millions of faithful he met during pastoral visits in Italy and throughout the world. We must also remember the numerous government personalities he encountered during 38 official visits, 738 audiences and meetings held with Heads of State, and 246 audiences and meetings with Prime Ministers.
His love for young people brought him to establish the World Youth Days. The 19 WYDs celebrated during his pontificate brought together millions of young people from all over the world. At the same time his care for the family was expressed in the World Meetings of Families, which he initiated in 1994. John Paul II successfully encouraged dialogue with the Jews and with the representatives of other religions, whom he several times invited to prayer meetings for peace, especially in Assisi.
Under his guidance the Church prepared herself for the third millennium and celebrated the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 in accordance with the instructions given in the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio adveniente. The Church then faced the new epoch, receiving his instructions in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio ineunte, in which he indicated to the faithful their future path.
With the Year of the Redemption, the Marian Year and the Year of the Eucharist, he promoted the spiritual renewal of the Church. He gave an extraordinary impetus to Canonizations and Beatifications, focusing on countless examples of holiness as an incentive for the people of our time. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies during which he proclaimed 1,338 Blesseds; and 51 canonizations for a total of 482 saints. He made Thérèse of the Child Jesus a Doctor of the Church.
He considerably expanded the College of Cardinals, creating 231 Cardinals (plus one in pectore) in 9 consistories. He also called six full meetings of the College of Cardinals. His most important Documents include 14 Encyclicals, 15 Apostolic Exhortations, 11 Apostolic Constitutions, 45 Apostolic Letters. He promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the light of Tradition as authoritatively interpreted by the Second Vatican Council. He also reformed the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law, created new Institutions and reorganized the Roman Curia.
In the light of Christ risen from the dead, on 2 April 2005 at 9.37 p.m., while Saturday was drawing to a close and the Lord's Day was already beginning, the Octave of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church's beloved Pastor, John Paul II, departed this world for the Father. On April 1, 2011, he was raised to the glory of the altars and on April 27, 2014 canonized.
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November 24, 2018
Very inspiring read. Helped to strengthen my faith.
August 6, 2026
The Human Dimension of the Mystery of the Redemption
Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself; his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to man himself" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). This is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. Man finds again the greatness, dignity, and value that belong to his humanity. Man becomes newly "expressed" and is newly created. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—he must, with his unrest, uncertainty, and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death draw near to Christ. He must enter into him with all his own self; he must appropriate and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he can then bear fruit not only of adoration of God, but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious man must be in the eyes of the Creator, if he "gained so great a Redeemer" and if God gave his only Son in order that man should not perish but have eternal life.
—Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, March 4, 1979
Christ's Salvific Work
As a result of Christ's salvific work, man exists on earth with the hope of eternal life and holiness. And even though the victory over sin and death achieved by Christ in his Cross and Resurrection does not abolish temporal suffering from human life or free from suffering the whole historical dimension of human existence, it nevertheless throws a new light upon this dimension and upon every suffering: the light of salvation. This is the light of the gospel, that is, of the "good news." At the heart of this light is the truth expounded in the conversation with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16). This truth radically changes the picture of man's history and his earthly situation: in spite of the sin that took root in this history both as an original inheritance and as the "sin of the world," the sum of personal sins, God the Father has loved the only begotten Son; that is, he loves him in a lasting way. And then in time, precisely through this all-surpassing love, he "gives" this Son, that he may strike at the very roots of human evil and thus draw close in a salvific way to the whole world of suffering in which man shares.
—Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, February 11, 1984
The Art of Authentic Living
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. It is important to recognize the distinction, but also the connection, between these two aspects of human activity. The distinction is clear. It is one thing for human beings to be the authors of their own acts, with responsibility for their moral value; it is another to be an artist, able to respond to the demands of art and faithfully to accept art's specific dictates. That is what makes artists capable of producing objects, but it says nothing as yet of their moral character. We are speaking not of molding oneself, but simply of actualizing one's productive capacities, giving aesthetic form to ideas conceived in the mind. The distinction between the moral and the artistic aspects is fundamental, but no less important is the connection between them. Each conditions the other in a profound way. By producing a work, artists express themselves to the point where their work becomes a unique disclosure of their own being.... In shaping a masterpiece, artists... in some way reveal their own personality by means of it. For them art offers both a new dimension and an exceptional mode of expression for spiritual growth. Works of art speak of their authors; they enable us to know their inner life, and they reveal the original contribution that artists offer to the history of culture.
—Letter to Artists, April 4, 1999
The Sermon on the Mount
There are eight Beatitudes, and the first one declares: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 5:3). The mountain in Galilee on which Jesus uttered the Beatitudes is one only, but there are many places all over the earth where the same affirmations are proclaimed and listened to.... Among you there are many poor people. The Church in Brazil wishes to be the Church of the Poor. She wishes this first Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount to be realized in this great country. The poor in spirit are those who are most open to God and to "the mighty works of God" (Acts 2:11). Poor, because they are ready to accept always the gift from above that comes from God himself. The poor in spirit are those who live in awareness that they have received everything from the hands of God as a gratuitous gift and to value every good received. Constantly grateful, they repeat incessantly: "Everything is grace. Let us thank the Lord our God." Jesus said to them at the same time that they are "pure in heart" and "meek"; it is they who "hunger and thirst for righteousness," they who frequently "mourn," they who are "peacemakers" and "persecuted for righteousness' sake." It is finally they who are "merciful" (Matt. 5:3-10). The poor, the poor in spirit, are the most merciful. Their hearts open to God are for that very reason most open to men also. They are ready to offer their help, ready to share what they have.... They always find an extra place in the midst of the straits in which they live.
—Speech at Favela Vidigal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2, 1980
The Conscience
Like all things human, the conscience can fail and encounter illusions and errors. It is a delicate voice that can be overpowered by a noisy, distracted way of life or almost suffocated by a long-lasting and serious habit of sin. Conscience needs to be nurtured and educated, and the preferred way to form it—at least for those who have the grace of faith—is to relate it to the biblical revelation of the moral law and authoritatively interpret it with the help of the Church and the Holy Spirit.
—Go in Peace
On Pilgrimage: Encountering the Ten Commandments
The encounter of God and Moses on the Mountain enshrines at the heart of our religion the mystery of liberating obedience, which finds its fulfillment in the perfect obedience of Christ in the Incarnation and on the Cross (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8-9). We too shall be truly free if we learn to obey as Jesus did (Heb. 5:8). The Ten Commandments are not an arbitrary imposition of a tyrannical Lord. They were written in stone; but before that, they were written on the human heart as the universal moral law, valid in every time and place. Today as always, the Ten Words of the Law provide the only true basis for the lives of individuals, societies, and nations. Today as always, they are the only future of the human family. They save man from the destructive force of egoism, hatred, and falsehood. They point out all the false gods that draw him into slavery: the love of self to the exclusion of God, the greed for power and pleasure that overturns the order of justice and degrades our human dignity and that of our neighbor. If we turn from these false idols and follow the God who sets his people free and remains always with them, then we shall emerge like Moses, after forty days on the Mountain, "shining with glory" (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses), ablaze with the light of God! To keep the commandments is to be faithful to God, but it is also to be faithful to ourselves, to our true nature and our deepest aspirations.
—Homily from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt, February 26, 2000
The Dangers Faced by Love
The dangers faced by love are dangers for the civilization of love, because they promote everything capable of effectively opposing it. Here one thinks first of selfishness, not only selfishness of individuals, but also of couples or, more broadly, of social selfishness, that of class or nation (nationalism). Selfishness in all its forms is directly and radically opposed to the civilization of love. But is love to be defined simply as "anti-selfishness"? This would be a very impoverished and ultimately a purely negative definition, even though it is true that different forms of selfishness must be overcome in order to realize love and the civilization of love. It would be more correct to speak of "altruism," which is the opposite of selfishness. But far richer and more complete is the concept of love illustrated by St. Paul. The hymn to love in the First Letter to the Corinthians remains the Magna Carta of the civilization of love. In this concept, what is important is not so much individual actions (whether selfish or altruistic), so much as the radical acceptance of the understanding of man as a person who "finds himself" by making a sincere gift of self. A gift is, obviously, "for others": this is the most important dimension of the civilization of love. We thus come to the very heart of the gospel truth about freedom. Freedom cannot be understood as a license to do absolutely anything: it means a gift of self. Even more: it means an interior discipline of the gift. The idea of gift contains not only the free initiative of the subject, but also the aspect of duty. All this is made real in the "communion of persons."
—Letter to Families, February 2, 1994
Do Not Be Afraid
The Apostles, overcoming their initial fears even about marriage and the family, grew in courage. They came to understand that marriage and family are a true vocation, which comes from God himself and is an apostolate: the apostolate of the laity. Families are meant to contribute to the transformation of the earth and the renewal of the world, of creation and of all humanity. Dear families, you too should be fearless, ever ready to give witness to the hope that is in you (1 Pet. 3:15), since the Good Shepherd has put that hope in your hearts through the Gospel. You should be ready to follow Christ toward the pastures of life, which he himself has prepared through the Paschal Mystery of his Death and Resurrection. Do not be afraid of the risks! God's strength is always far more powerful than your difficulties!
—Letter to Families, February 2, 1994
The Fact of Concupiscence
Concupiscence does not mean only the natural faculty of carnal desire, that is to say, orientation toward those values to which, in the context of sex, the senses respond. Concupiscence is a consistent tendency to see persons of the other sex through the prism of sexuality alone, "as objects of potential enjoyment." Concupiscence, then, refers to a latent inclination of human beings to invert the objective order of values, for the correct way to see and "desire" a person is through the medium of his or her value as a person. We should not think of this manner of seeing and desiring as "asexual," as blind to the value of "the body and sex"; it is simply that this value must be correctly integrated with love of the person—love in the proper and full sense of the word. Concupiscence, however, looks upon a person as "a potential object for use" precisely because of this value of "the body and sex" (whereas the body as a component of the person should itself be an object of love, only because of the value of the person); hence the distinction between "love of the body" and "carnal love."
—Love and Responsibility
Love and Morality
The great moral force of true love lies precisely in the desire for the happiness, for the true good, of another person. This is what makes it possible for a man to be reborn because of love, makes him aware of the riches within him, his spiritual fertility and creativity: I am capable of desiring the good for another person, therefore I am, in general, capable of desiring the good. True love compels me to believe in my own spiritual powers even when I am "bad"; if true love awakens in me, it bids me seek the true good where the object of my love is concerned. In this way, affirmation of the worth of another person is echoed in affirmation of the worth of one's own person—for it is awareness of the value of the person, not of sexual values, that makes a man desire the happiness of another "I." When love attains its full dimensions, it introduces into relationship not only a "climate" of honesty between persons, but a certain awareness of the "absolute," a sense of contact with the unconditional and the ultimate. Love is indeed the highest of moral values. But one must know how to transfer it to the ordinary affairs of everyday life. This is where the problem of educating love arises.
—Love and Responsibility
The extraordinary progress of science and technology is ambivalent. It can be used for good and for evil. It can save human lives and destroy them. It can allow a better and more equitable distribution of the world's goods or, on the contrary, allow a growth of their accumulation by small groups while increasing the misery of the masses. It can favor peace or, on the contrary, threaten humanity with frightful destruction.
—Discourse to the Youth of Fribourg, Switzerland, June 13, 1984
Listen to Your Inner Voice
All of you are bidden to give hope to humanity by transforming it from within by the force of the gospel. Some of you will fulfill this call by founding a Christian home, which will become a missionary cell. Others will feel drawn to live in chastity, poor and available to others in the religious life, to radiate the Beatitudes. Others again will be ready to consecrate their life as deacons or as priests to lead the people of God on its journey. Today, to each one of you, the Virgin addresses an important piece of advice, as she did at Cana when the wine ran low at the wedding: "Whatever he tells you, do it" (John 2:5). So that your life may retain a taste of the feast, be dynamic and joyful in the service of others. Seek to carry out what Christ asks of you; answer with Mary's "fiat": "I am the servant of the Lord" (Luke 1:38).
—Radio Address to a Pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, August 15, 1980
Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself; his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to man himself" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). This is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. Man finds again the greatness, dignity, and value that belong to his humanity. Man becomes newly "expressed" and is newly created. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—he must, with his unrest, uncertainty, and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death draw near to Christ. He must enter into him with all his own self; he must appropriate and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he can then bear fruit not only of adoration of God, but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious man must be in the eyes of the Creator, if he "gained so great a Redeemer" and if God gave his only Son in order that man should not perish but have eternal life.
—Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, March 4, 1979
Christ's Salvific Work
As a result of Christ's salvific work, man exists on earth with the hope of eternal life and holiness. And even though the victory over sin and death achieved by Christ in his Cross and Resurrection does not abolish temporal suffering from human life or free from suffering the whole historical dimension of human existence, it nevertheless throws a new light upon this dimension and upon every suffering: the light of salvation. This is the light of the gospel, that is, of the "good news." At the heart of this light is the truth expounded in the conversation with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16). This truth radically changes the picture of man's history and his earthly situation: in spite of the sin that took root in this history both as an original inheritance and as the "sin of the world," the sum of personal sins, God the Father has loved the only begotten Son; that is, he loves him in a lasting way. And then in time, precisely through this all-surpassing love, he "gives" this Son, that he may strike at the very roots of human evil and thus draw close in a salvific way to the whole world of suffering in which man shares.
—Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, February 11, 1984
The Art of Authentic Living
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. It is important to recognize the distinction, but also the connection, between these two aspects of human activity. The distinction is clear. It is one thing for human beings to be the authors of their own acts, with responsibility for their moral value; it is another to be an artist, able to respond to the demands of art and faithfully to accept art's specific dictates. That is what makes artists capable of producing objects, but it says nothing as yet of their moral character. We are speaking not of molding oneself, but simply of actualizing one's productive capacities, giving aesthetic form to ideas conceived in the mind. The distinction between the moral and the artistic aspects is fundamental, but no less important is the connection between them. Each conditions the other in a profound way. By producing a work, artists express themselves to the point where their work becomes a unique disclosure of their own being.... In shaping a masterpiece, artists... in some way reveal their own personality by means of it. For them art offers both a new dimension and an exceptional mode of expression for spiritual growth. Works of art speak of their authors; they enable us to know their inner life, and they reveal the original contribution that artists offer to the history of culture.
—Letter to Artists, April 4, 1999
The Sermon on the Mount
There are eight Beatitudes, and the first one declares: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 5:3). The mountain in Galilee on which Jesus uttered the Beatitudes is one only, but there are many places all over the earth where the same affirmations are proclaimed and listened to.... Among you there are many poor people. The Church in Brazil wishes to be the Church of the Poor. She wishes this first Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount to be realized in this great country. The poor in spirit are those who are most open to God and to "the mighty works of God" (Acts 2:11). Poor, because they are ready to accept always the gift from above that comes from God himself. The poor in spirit are those who live in awareness that they have received everything from the hands of God as a gratuitous gift and to value every good received. Constantly grateful, they repeat incessantly: "Everything is grace. Let us thank the Lord our God." Jesus said to them at the same time that they are "pure in heart" and "meek"; it is they who "hunger and thirst for righteousness," they who frequently "mourn," they who are "peacemakers" and "persecuted for righteousness' sake." It is finally they who are "merciful" (Matt. 5:3-10). The poor, the poor in spirit, are the most merciful. Their hearts open to God are for that very reason most open to men also. They are ready to offer their help, ready to share what they have.... They always find an extra place in the midst of the straits in which they live.
—Speech at Favela Vidigal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2, 1980
The Conscience
Like all things human, the conscience can fail and encounter illusions and errors. It is a delicate voice that can be overpowered by a noisy, distracted way of life or almost suffocated by a long-lasting and serious habit of sin. Conscience needs to be nurtured and educated, and the preferred way to form it—at least for those who have the grace of faith—is to relate it to the biblical revelation of the moral law and authoritatively interpret it with the help of the Church and the Holy Spirit.
—Go in Peace
On Pilgrimage: Encountering the Ten Commandments
The encounter of God and Moses on the Mountain enshrines at the heart of our religion the mystery of liberating obedience, which finds its fulfillment in the perfect obedience of Christ in the Incarnation and on the Cross (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8-9). We too shall be truly free if we learn to obey as Jesus did (Heb. 5:8). The Ten Commandments are not an arbitrary imposition of a tyrannical Lord. They were written in stone; but before that, they were written on the human heart as the universal moral law, valid in every time and place. Today as always, the Ten Words of the Law provide the only true basis for the lives of individuals, societies, and nations. Today as always, they are the only future of the human family. They save man from the destructive force of egoism, hatred, and falsehood. They point out all the false gods that draw him into slavery: the love of self to the exclusion of God, the greed for power and pleasure that overturns the order of justice and degrades our human dignity and that of our neighbor. If we turn from these false idols and follow the God who sets his people free and remains always with them, then we shall emerge like Moses, after forty days on the Mountain, "shining with glory" (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses), ablaze with the light of God! To keep the commandments is to be faithful to God, but it is also to be faithful to ourselves, to our true nature and our deepest aspirations.
—Homily from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt, February 26, 2000
The Dangers Faced by Love
The dangers faced by love are dangers for the civilization of love, because they promote everything capable of effectively opposing it. Here one thinks first of selfishness, not only selfishness of individuals, but also of couples or, more broadly, of social selfishness, that of class or nation (nationalism). Selfishness in all its forms is directly and radically opposed to the civilization of love. But is love to be defined simply as "anti-selfishness"? This would be a very impoverished and ultimately a purely negative definition, even though it is true that different forms of selfishness must be overcome in order to realize love and the civilization of love. It would be more correct to speak of "altruism," which is the opposite of selfishness. But far richer and more complete is the concept of love illustrated by St. Paul. The hymn to love in the First Letter to the Corinthians remains the Magna Carta of the civilization of love. In this concept, what is important is not so much individual actions (whether selfish or altruistic), so much as the radical acceptance of the understanding of man as a person who "finds himself" by making a sincere gift of self. A gift is, obviously, "for others": this is the most important dimension of the civilization of love. We thus come to the very heart of the gospel truth about freedom. Freedom cannot be understood as a license to do absolutely anything: it means a gift of self. Even more: it means an interior discipline of the gift. The idea of gift contains not only the free initiative of the subject, but also the aspect of duty. All this is made real in the "communion of persons."
—Letter to Families, February 2, 1994
Do Not Be Afraid
The Apostles, overcoming their initial fears even about marriage and the family, grew in courage. They came to understand that marriage and family are a true vocation, which comes from God himself and is an apostolate: the apostolate of the laity. Families are meant to contribute to the transformation of the earth and the renewal of the world, of creation and of all humanity. Dear families, you too should be fearless, ever ready to give witness to the hope that is in you (1 Pet. 3:15), since the Good Shepherd has put that hope in your hearts through the Gospel. You should be ready to follow Christ toward the pastures of life, which he himself has prepared through the Paschal Mystery of his Death and Resurrection. Do not be afraid of the risks! God's strength is always far more powerful than your difficulties!
—Letter to Families, February 2, 1994
The Fact of Concupiscence
Concupiscence does not mean only the natural faculty of carnal desire, that is to say, orientation toward those values to which, in the context of sex, the senses respond. Concupiscence is a consistent tendency to see persons of the other sex through the prism of sexuality alone, "as objects of potential enjoyment." Concupiscence, then, refers to a latent inclination of human beings to invert the objective order of values, for the correct way to see and "desire" a person is through the medium of his or her value as a person. We should not think of this manner of seeing and desiring as "asexual," as blind to the value of "the body and sex"; it is simply that this value must be correctly integrated with love of the person—love in the proper and full sense of the word. Concupiscence, however, looks upon a person as "a potential object for use" precisely because of this value of "the body and sex" (whereas the body as a component of the person should itself be an object of love, only because of the value of the person); hence the distinction between "love of the body" and "carnal love."
—Love and Responsibility
Love and Morality
The great moral force of true love lies precisely in the desire for the happiness, for the true good, of another person. This is what makes it possible for a man to be reborn because of love, makes him aware of the riches within him, his spiritual fertility and creativity: I am capable of desiring the good for another person, therefore I am, in general, capable of desiring the good. True love compels me to believe in my own spiritual powers even when I am "bad"; if true love awakens in me, it bids me seek the true good where the object of my love is concerned. In this way, affirmation of the worth of another person is echoed in affirmation of the worth of one's own person—for it is awareness of the value of the person, not of sexual values, that makes a man desire the happiness of another "I." When love attains its full dimensions, it introduces into relationship not only a "climate" of honesty between persons, but a certain awareness of the "absolute," a sense of contact with the unconditional and the ultimate. Love is indeed the highest of moral values. But one must know how to transfer it to the ordinary affairs of everyday life. This is where the problem of educating love arises.
—Love and Responsibility
The extraordinary progress of science and technology is ambivalent. It can be used for good and for evil. It can save human lives and destroy them. It can allow a better and more equitable distribution of the world's goods or, on the contrary, allow a growth of their accumulation by small groups while increasing the misery of the masses. It can favor peace or, on the contrary, threaten humanity with frightful destruction.
—Discourse to the Youth of Fribourg, Switzerland, June 13, 1984
Listen to Your Inner Voice
All of you are bidden to give hope to humanity by transforming it from within by the force of the gospel. Some of you will fulfill this call by founding a Christian home, which will become a missionary cell. Others will feel drawn to live in chastity, poor and available to others in the religious life, to radiate the Beatitudes. Others again will be ready to consecrate their life as deacons or as priests to lead the people of God on its journey. Today, to each one of you, the Virgin addresses an important piece of advice, as she did at Cana when the wine ran low at the wedding: "Whatever he tells you, do it" (John 2:5). So that your life may retain a taste of the feast, be dynamic and joyful in the service of others. Seek to carry out what Christ asks of you; answer with Mary's "fiat": "I am the servant of the Lord" (Luke 1:38).
—Radio Address to a Pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, August 15, 1980
June 28, 2018
It’s a daily reading that takes maybe only 5-10 minutes plus whatever time you allow pondering over it. After a few days I realized that Pope John Paul is frequently referring to a wide number of writings by Church fathers, and other sources from the vast Catholic repository of teachings. These daily exercises are usually too short but usually to the point and offer a good opportunity of keeping in touch with the faith in absence of anything broader.
The author of this anthology William Cardinal Baum, S.T.D. (1926-2015) writes in the Preface that
Pope John Paul II was a “perennial philosophical student of phenomenology with links to the “monumental thoughts of philosophers Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein, the latter of whom he was later to canonize as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, the name she chose when she left the classroom for the Carmelite.” (p. 2)
He compares the Pope to George Bernanos’ “The Diary of a County Priest.” That work has the line “Faith is not something which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.” (quoted on p. 2)
He always admired Max Scheler and made his own personal philosophical synthesis in his treatise “The Acting Person.”
“For John Paul solidarity meant standing together with others.” Cardinal Baum, the author of this compilation, says that “the solidarity movement ultimately brought Poland its freedom” (p. 2) He is not aware that this wishful thinking is something still in the works in 2017 and there has been only political turmoil with diehard leftist bureaucracy holding on to their elite status and in what they call “total opposition” to what the legitimately elected government does.
Bishop William Murphy writes in the Introduction writes that “the Holy Father shows the Incarnation of the Son of God radically changes the meaning of human existence” and with his constant call for social justice never tired of teaching that “Faith and social justice are not to be separated one from the other.” (p. 2)
The coming of God to the world in the incarnation of Jesus is not heard very often as an earth shaking event in world history. It is as if it was a non-event. C. S. Lewis, writing in 1943, saw the coming of Christ “the ‘first instance’ of the new man” two thousand years ago as the major step for humanity’s future that hasn’t been observed enough. (Mere Christianity, Chapter 11)
The author of this anthology William Cardinal Baum, S.T.D. (1926-2015) writes in the Preface that
Pope John Paul II was a “perennial philosophical student of phenomenology with links to the “monumental thoughts of philosophers Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein, the latter of whom he was later to canonize as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, the name she chose when she left the classroom for the Carmelite.” (p. 2)
He compares the Pope to George Bernanos’ “The Diary of a County Priest.” That work has the line “Faith is not something which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.” (quoted on p. 2)
He always admired Max Scheler and made his own personal philosophical synthesis in his treatise “The Acting Person.”
“For John Paul solidarity meant standing together with others.” Cardinal Baum, the author of this compilation, says that “the solidarity movement ultimately brought Poland its freedom” (p. 2) He is not aware that this wishful thinking is something still in the works in 2017 and there has been only political turmoil with diehard leftist bureaucracy holding on to their elite status and in what they call “total opposition” to what the legitimately elected government does.
Bishop William Murphy writes in the Introduction writes that “the Holy Father shows the Incarnation of the Son of God radically changes the meaning of human existence” and with his constant call for social justice never tired of teaching that “Faith and social justice are not to be separated one from the other.” (p. 2)
The coming of God to the world in the incarnation of Jesus is not heard very often as an earth shaking event in world history. It is as if it was a non-event. C. S. Lewis, writing in 1943, saw the coming of Christ “the ‘first instance’ of the new man” two thousand years ago as the major step for humanity’s future that hasn’t been observed enough. (Mere Christianity, Chapter 11)
December 31, 2016
This daily reader offers short reflections by Pope John Paul II. Naturally, I think Roman Catholics will find this more beneficial than the broader Christian Church - much of it was niche Catholic and it sometimes read more academically than I expect a daily devotional to.
January 23, 2017
Such wisdom, such genuine love and devotion. "Be not afraid..."
December 29, 2024
I greatly enjoyed reading this daily devotional over the course of the past year (2024). With erudition, emotion, and spiritual clarity, Pope John Paul II cross-analyzes biblical dictum with church doctrine, philosophy, ethics, and autobiography.
June 10, 2026
Is it wrong to say that I am not only a follower of Saint Pope John Paul II, but I am a fan of his as well? This book is easy to follow and understand. He was a good writer and spokesman for the Catholic Church. He is surely missed.
December 10, 2019
Rich content.
December 31, 2023
We were so lucky to have This man, at that time, for our Pope. Great book. Great man.
January 2, 2019
This book was a great way to dip into the vast writings of Saint John Paul II. Some of the writings aligned with feast days, which was nice, and some themes were followed throughout the course of several days.
The time commitment for any one day was very minimal, making it much more easy to catch up if I missed a few days here or there. This was greatly beneficial to my spiritual growth in 2018.
Highly recommended. Especially for those wanting a manageable place to start with Saint John Paul II.
The time commitment for any one day was very minimal, making it much more easy to catch up if I missed a few days here or there. This was greatly beneficial to my spiritual growth in 2018.
Highly recommended. Especially for those wanting a manageable place to start with Saint John Paul II.
September 22, 2016
This was one book of quotes from JPII that I particularly wanted because the format makes it very clear what is a quote from John Paul II and what is commentary. A lot of books like this do not make that distinction clear.
December 31, 2017
Wise words from a wise man.
It took me a year to read this book! :-)
It took me a year to read this book! :-)
January 1, 2021
Great reading!
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