Karol Wojtyła. Birth

"My boyhood and adolescence are connected primarily with my father whose spiritual life deepened after he had lost his wife and older son. I looked at his life up close, I saw him demanding of himself, I saw him kneeling to pray. And that was the most important thing in those years, which mean so much in a young man’s adolescence." André Frossard, "Do not be afraid." Interviews with John Paul II

May 18, 1920 – The Polish-Bolshevik war continues. In Wadowice, in a two-room apartment in the market square, Karol Wojtyła, or Lolek, as he will be called later, is born. His brother, Edmund, is almost 14. Their sister, Olga, died four years earlier, just after being born.

 

With his father – a serviceman – Karol wanders in the mountains. His brother, in turn, takes him to football games. Mountains and sport will remain near and dear to Karol for the rest of his life. Lolek attends the local boys’ primary school first and then the junior high school. He has a lot of friends with whom he learns and plays football. Extremely talented, he is particularly interested in literature and theatre.

Karol is barely 9 when he loses his mother. Another blow comes three years later, when his beloved brother passes away too. Until graduating from the junior high school, Karol lives with his father in Wadowice. He becomes an altar boy, receives the Carmelite scapular. Upon completing the final exams (“matura”), Karol moves to Kraków where he pursues his dream studies, i.e. Polish Studies.

"Every time I meet labourers, I can’t help but confess that I experienced God’s grace in a nearly four-year long labour in quarries and in a factory." John Paul II, Gabon (Africa), 1982.

The occupants issue a work order. Karol crushes stone blocks with a pickaxe and transports them by wheelbarrows at the Soda Factory “Solvay” in Kraków. During breaks at work he reads and prays. Every morning he attends a mass at the parish in Dębniki. Then in clogs and denim clothes, with a haversack slung over his shoulder, he goes to work.

In time of war, theatre is also a way to fight with the occupants – it keeps the spirit of the nation alive. Karol combines hard physical work with performances at the Rhapsodic Theatre. He is a promising actor. During this period, he also writes his own youth poems and dramas.

"Vocation maturing in such circumstances acquires a new value and meaning. As the evil and horrors of war were spreading, the meaning of the priesthood and its mission in the world became extremely transparent and clear to me." John Paul II, “Gift and Mystery”

Niegowić in the commune of Gdów. 1948. The village parish receives a new curate – Fr. Wojtyła. As he crosses the border of the parish, Wojtyła kneels down and kisses the ground. Just a year later, he is called back to Kraków, to St. Florian’s parish. He gives conferences for students, sets up a youth choir, organizes numerous trips. Next, he is chosen for academic work, and he works on his habilitation. He becomes a lecturer at the Catholic University of Lublin. "There was an auditorium with a stage, but the rehearsals took place by the oil lamp in an unheated room, since there was no electricity in Niegowić at the time. Anyway, everything by oil lamps. But for the show itself, the boys managed to get an old, post-German dynamo. A big one. In the attic of the building there were always two of them spinning and then there was light on stage." Maria Trzaska, a resident of Niegowić, speaking about the plays directed by Fr. Wojtyła  

"And so we set off, first in a kayak over the waves of the river, and then in a truck laden with sacks of flour, until I got to Olsztynek. The train for Warsaw left late at night."

John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way

At that time, the communists are building Nowa Huta – a district of Kraków envisaged as a model communist urban planning. People from the neighbourhood demand to have a church built as well. They obtain a building permit; however, the decision is quickly withdrawn. A crowd is gathering around the cross erected at the construction site. The services brutally suppress the protest. Yet, the young bishop does not give up. In 1967 he sticks the first shovel, and 10 years later he consecrates a new church, called the Lord’s Ark.

"Vocation always means that we are to see a new project of our own life – a different project from the one we have lived with so far."

André Frossard, “Do not be afraid.” Interviews with John Paul II.

Rome, the ’60s. Wojtyła actively participates in the works of the Second Vatican Council. In 1967, he receives a cardinal’s hat. He becomes an entrusted associate of Paul VI, vividly criticized for his encyclical, Humanae vitae. The young cardinal supports him both in his work, providing invaluable input, and spiritually. "(…) Should we need a pope one day, I have but one candidate – Wojtyła! Unfortunately, it is utterly impossible. He stands no chance.” Fr. Henri de Lubac, Jesuit, SV II expert  

"(...) this is the role of the Church that wants to unite, that wants to bring together people and nations above what divides them and sometimes turns one against the other.”

John Paul II to the diplomatic corps, January 14, 1980.

"He said: ‘Do not be afraid...’ It was a call for us, at least this is how I understood it. Then we really raised from our knees.” Anna Walentynowicz, co-founder of NSZZ “Solidarność”

John Paul II is the first pope in the history to visit the Church in all corners of the world. Altogether, he made 104 trips, covering a distance equal to more than 42 laps around the equator.

1986. In Assisi, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians of different denominations and representatives of other religions gather together. They are united in prayer for peace. John Paul II has repeatedly called for reconciliation – in the Balkans, in Rwanda. He personally intervenes in the Chile-Argentina conflict. He meets religious leaders again in 2002, begging God for peace after the attacks on the World Trade Center and after the war in Afghanistan began.

“Each one of us painfully feels the closure of life, the boundary of death. Each one of us is somehow aware of the fact that the man does not fit completely within these boundaries, though, that he cannot die completely.” John Paul II, Rome, April 5, 1979.



1981. The Pope circles St. Peter’s Square. He greets the faithful, takes children in his arms. Suddenly there is a loud bang! A bullet pierces the Holy Father’s body. The fight for his life begins. The Pope entered the See of Peter full of strength and physically fit. The attack has a detrimental effect on his health. At the end of his life, he suffers from Parkinson’s disease and his vulnerability becomes more and more apparent. However, despite the weakness of the body, his mind remains clear.

Palm Sunday 2005. The disease progresses quickly. John Paul II makes a short appearance in the window. After a larynx surgery, he is unable to say even a word. He gives the faithful a silent blessing. He does not participate in the Way of the Cross at the Coliseum on Good Friday. He prays in his private chapel and hugs the cross. A week later, the agony begins. The faithful all over the world gather in prayer. John Paul II dies on April 2 at 9:37 PM.

 

“Our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house; he sees us and blesses us,” says Cardinal Ratzinger during the funeral. Among the countless crowds of the faithful, “Santo subito” – “Saint immediately” – banners appear nearly instantly. The Pope is declared a blessed just six years after his death and declared a saint in 2014. “John Paul II who, because of his inexhaustible energy and courage in taking on the challenges that the Church faced, was once called the God’s Athlete, remained him until the very end. Sick and suffering in recent years as a result of inexorable illness, he deserved that title even more. He was carrying out his mission with extraordinary serenity, derived from the power of spirit.” Polish Press Agency, a communique sent out immediately after the Pope’s death