Hi I m Fr.
Chris Alar at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy and welcome to Ask A Marian.
Elma Flannery asks this week: Fr.
Chris, in all your talks I have never heard you do a specific one on Pope John Paul II.
Is there a reason for that?
Well, thank you, Elma.
I can promise you there s no negative reason for that other than, I just wanted to wait
until his Feast Day, which is October 22nd, and since that is tomorrow, lets talk about
him today.
All right.
In doing so, it s important that we start with the fact that he was an incredibly holy
man and a man of prayer.
In fact, according to John Paul s Press Secretary, his hour to hour and a half of prayer, private
prayer first thing every morning was the best part of his day.
He would say that.
Now, when visitors would come and they would arrive to join him for Mass, they would always
note that he would be kneeling in prayer.
And some said, it even looked like he was speaking with somebody invisible.
That s interesting because many people, including his best friend, Cardinal Dziwisz, who was
his secretary for decades, reported that they would actually hear John Paul at times engaged
in conversation with God.
You know, that Cardinal said that he would pray for up to an hour in a trance, without
moving even a millimeter.
So, prayer was the rhythm of his life.
A life centered on the Eucharist.
He made time to pray throughout the day, before meals, after meals he would pray his Divine
Office which we Priests pray five times a day.
He would pray that throughout his day.
At six in the morning, at noon, and again at six in the evening.
He would stop whatever he was doing and pray the Angelus.
You know, he prayed several Rosaries each day, went to Confession every week, and did
not let a single day pass without receiving Holy Communion.
And, on Each Friday, and in fact, every day during Lent, he would walk the Stations of
the Cross.
And, speaking of Lent, during Lent he would eat only one meal a day and he always fasted
on the eve of Our Lady s Feast Days.
So just think, he did this while at the same time having all the administrative duties
and the pastoral duties which he did, which alone would have warned pretty much anyone
else down.
You know, each night he would look out his window over St. Peter s Square and out upon
the whole world, and he would make the Sign of the Cross over it, blessing the world goodnight.
You know, one of his biographers noted that he seldom went to bed before midnight, and
he often slept right on the bare floor and witnesses would say that he would spend hours
at a time and sometimes the entire night, prostrate, meaning lying flat on that marble
floor right in front of the Tabernacle with his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross.
His aides also would state that he made all of his major decisions actually on his knees
before the Blessed Sacrament.
So, while being a man of prayer, John Paul based it all on God s grace.
You know, but he also accomplished a lot of incredible achievements.
You know, in his time as the second longest serving Pope in history.
For instance, he warned of the dangers of atheistic socialism, he ignited the collapse
of communism.
He focused on true, not false ecumenism by engaging the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the
Orthodox and Evangelical Protestants in ongoing dialogue.
He showed the world that even though we can t pray together because they believe in something
else, we Catholics believe in the true, One-True God, but even though we can t pray together
people of different Faiths could be together to pray.
That s kind of interesting.
You know, we had to remove Father Allen s video last week unfortunately, about John
Paul s visit to Assisi where he did kiss the Quran because the comments became very hostile.
Yes, I personally believe, this is just my personal belief, that he, John Paul made a
big mistake kissing the Quran and should not have done it at all, because I think it caused,
as we can see by the comments, a lot of confusion that he would support Islamic teaching or
something like that.
He didn t, but this is something we Catholics can t do.
We, we know the truth, we have it in our Faith.
But Father Allen never said that John Paul should have done this.
He just stated what happened and he never said it was a good idea.
Fr.
Allen just stated what John Paul s intent was.
And his intent was one of living with our neighbors in peace, not a statement of truthfulness
about the Quran.
So please, thank you to keep that in mind.
Now, other noteworthy things were John Paul s response for instance, to the sexual revolution
with Theology of the Body.
This is an incredible watershed work.
If you haven t read it, please, please do.
Showing the beauty of marital love and how it imitates even the Trinity.
He also commissioned the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, presenting this strong
Catholic teaching, but yet, in a comprehensive and very simple and coherent way, easy to
read.
And perhaps the greatest achievement of all, John Paul brought to the world an awareness
of Divine Mercy and Saint Faustina.
He said that he believed the reason he was made Pope, can you imagine this?
The reason he believed he was made Pope, was because of Divine Mercy.
And as he saw it, was his special task before God.
Why God gave him the role.
In fact, at Saint Faustina s Canonization, he said that it was the happiest day of his
life.
He said that in private, but several people heard it.
Now, here s something interesting.
Saint Faustina wrote about what many believe was her own canonization.
Yeah.
In her vision, and this is in her Diary.
In her vision, she saw Saint Peter whisper in the Holy Father s ear.
Now, she didn t know who the Pope was at the time.
She didn t say it was John Paul, but she said the Holy Father whispered, St. Peter whispered
in his ear.
Now, on the day of St. Faustina s Canonization in 2000, it appeared that John Paul was not
going to make any kind of a statement about Divine Mercy Sunday, but then, suddenly after
being silent in meditation, he proclaimed it as a Feast, a Universal Feast and put it
on the Universal Calendar.
Now, so did Saint Peter whisper in John Paul s ear?
Well, we don t know.
But some, including me, think so.
That is because John Paul said that Divine Mercy is the most important message of our
times and he basically canonized the Divine Mercy Message and Devotion by declaring this
Divine Mercy Sunday that we just mentioned or the Second Sunday of Easter as just that,
Divine Mercy Sunday.
You know, Jesus Himself told Saint Faustina that Divine Mercy was mankind s last hope
of salvation and that she would help prepare the world for His Final Coming.
How?
Well, with the help, a little help of John Paul the Second.
You know, Jesus said that a spark would come from Poland to prepare the world for this
Final Coming.
And that spark, we Marians believe is Saint Faustina, Divine Mercy and John Paul the Second.
You know, he said that it was as if Christ was saying through Saint Faustina that evil
does not have the last word.
And in fact, he continued to proclaim it through his entire life, all the way up to the day
he passed away.
And John Paul, he died on the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday and it was actually Divine Mercy
Sunday in many parts of the world.
And he passed away within one hour of receiving Holy Communion and having been to Confession.
And remember, that s the condition of the Promise: Go to Confession, receive Holy Communion
and you will be completely whipped clean of all sin and punishment.
So, that means God s reward to him for tirelessly spreading this Message of Divine Mercy would
be that he got that Divine Mercy Promise of the forgiveness, as we said, of all sin and
all punishment.
In other words, he got his slate wiped clean, his soul was spotless, just like a second
Baptism and just like yours can be on Divine Mercy Sunday, as well.
So, thank you, Elma, for the question, a great one.
And until next week, may Almighty God bless you.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.