IN GODS HANDS EB

Pope St John Paul II

• Publisher: William Collins
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780008101077
• eBook ISBN: 9780008101060
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies

The spiritual diaries of Pope St John Paul II – published for the first time ever in English. The most intimate insight into the longest-serving pontiff of our time.

Ten years after his death, the popularity and devotion towards John Paul II, the pope who helped bring down communism in his native Poland, the great statesman, and the most-travelled
pope in history, remains as strong as ever.

Since his early years as a priest in the 1960s, up until 2003, two years before his death, the pope kept a spiritual diary, recording his reflections on God, life, spirituality, the
problems facing the church – and his own struggles.
Never intended for publication, these diaries were entrusted before his death to his personal secretary, who saw fit to have them published as they represent an unprecedented and important testament to the spirituality of this Christian leader, adored to this day by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

The Retreats

1962

Recollectio (inter.) [Inner retreat]

Praenotanda [Introduction]

8 July

The following key inner topics have been put together and discussed with the father:

1. death

2. power

3. creativity

4. people.

2 September

The recollection of these topics and novum [novelty] (as if a common denominator was found for all the experiences and reflections): I am very much in God’s hands – the content of this ‘Totus Tuus’ [‘Entirely Yours’]¹ opened, so to speak, in a new place. When any concern ‘of mine’ becomes in this way Mary’s, it can be undertaken, even if it involves an element of risk (though one must not overdo it: in human terms, i.e. on the human side, the issue needs to be dealt with thoroughly). At a certain point, however, one needs to abandon human calculations and somehow grasp the Godly dimensions of every difficult issue. A peculiar iunctim [junction] of issue 4 with issue 2 begins to emerge here.

I discussed all this with the father too.

1962
Dies recollectionis (sequ.)

[Reflection days (continuation)] after the arrival in Rome for the first session of the Second Vatican Council

9 October

Holy Mass; Lauds; Prime

I participated in the ‘capella papalis’ [‘solemn papal ceremonies’] on the fourth anniversary of the death of the late Pope Pius XII, thanks to whom I became a bishop. Thoughts: (a) moving from external to internal vision, I have realised that all those present are connected in one spirit and it is the Spirit of Christ, the Son of God. I experienced this unity in diversity very clearly, and with various degrees of participation taken into account. Not a gathering of many separate units, but the unity of substance. It is the substance of thought, doctrine – and it is attended to by the Pope and the Council. But it is also the substance of life, morals, which we realise within the one Church, through, above all, the mysterium (sacraments): the unity of our sacrificial posture with Christ’s, sealed with the Communion; (b) a background thought that came to me was about the truth of priesthood and episcopacy, which was also given to me from within Christ’s priesthood through His Vicar on earth (Vicarius Christi).¹

Adoration: Christ is entirely within the Church and the Church is entirely within Christ. NB I constantly need to remind myself to wish for a good shepherd for the seat of St Stanislaus above all and fundamentally, without allowing for any ‘mea’ [‘mine’].²

Reading the schema ‘de castitate, matrimonio, familia, virginitate’ [‘on chastity, marriage, family, virginity’].³

Reflection (meditation):

1. quoad theoriam [concerning theory]

2. quoad practicam [concerning practice].

(The problem of a general and ‘perspectival’ leadership in this area.)

14 October

Meditation: Let us consider the most proper way for the human spirit to meet the Divine Spirit. Our Lord Christ laid the foundation for this meeting for every human being – and for the work of the Divine Spirit in the human spirit.

(The theological virtues: the means to adjust the human spirit to the Divine Spirit; the gifts of the Holy Spirit: the means, so to speak, of adjusting the Divine Spirit to the ‘dimensions’ of the human spirit.) A move towards the opening and submission of the human spirit to the Divine Spirit is necessary, particularly during the Council. The goal cannot be the expression or assertion of oneself, the human being, the human spirit alone – but above all the expression of that which comes from the Divine Spirit in the form of virtues and gifts. In this light, the fundamental attitude: (1) a permanent necessity to subordinate creativity to truth; (2) experimentum divinum, non humanum [the divine, not human, experience]; (3) humility.

[31 October – 4 November] 1962

Rome, at the Felician Sisters’ Convent

Topic: The mystery of redemption

Deus, Redemisti nos Domine

in sanguine Tuo ex omni

tribu et populo et natione

et fecisti nos Deo nostro regnum

[God, by Thy blood, O Lord,

you didst ransom us from every

tribe and people and nation,

and hast made us a kingdom to our God]¹

31 October

The retreat begins at 7.00 p.m.

Adoration; Matins

Introductory meditation: Sixteenth anniversary of [my] ordination to the priesthood – recapitulatio, ut ita dicam, historica [a historical recollection, so to speak]²

Reading: Rahner K., XX siècle – siècle de grâce? [twentieth century – the century of grace?]. Opus Creationis – opus Redemptionis [the order of creation – the order of redemption].³ (La Rédemption au Coeur de Marie [Redemption in Mary’s Heart]).

Compline

1 November

Rosary (petitionary); Lauds

Meditation: Memories from the ceremony of the sacrament of priesthood ‘ut quidquid benedixerint, benedicatur, et quidquid consecraverint, consecretur et sanctificetur’ [‘that whatever they bless may be blessed, and whatever they consecrate may be consecrated and made holy’].⁴

– On the priest’s hands – Nothing, however, was ‘right’, until the point when I felt great humility towards Christ’s work of redemption – in this spirit, Sacrum cum grat. act., Prima [Holy Mass with thanksgiving, Prime].

Further meditation: Christ redeems us and all for the Father, i.e. offers an atoning sacrifice (propitiatorium), which consists in His complete devotion and union with the Father. Hence the Holy Spirit as the breath of both. We – people – are elevated by the act of Christ’s re...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction by the Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack
• Introduction to the Polish Edition
• Preface by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków, Stanisław Cardinal Dziwisz
• The Secret of Father Karol Wojtyła – Pope John Paul II’s Spiritual Notes
• The Retreats
• Footnotes
• About the Author
• About the Publisher