John Paul II and The Blessed Sacrament
- JASON EVERT
A French novelist once wrote, "Tell me what you love, and I will tell you who you are." Although there are countless ways to study Saint John Paul the Great, the most direct route is by entering the man's heart. Discover the five greatest loves of Saint John Paul II, through remarkable unpublished stories about him from bishops, priests who organized his papal pilgrimages, his students in Poland, Swiss Guards, and others.
Between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. — and sometimes as early as 4:00 — Pope John Paul II would arise each morning, keeping virtually the same schedule he had as the bishop of Kraków. Although he enjoyed watching the sunrise, the main reason for his early start was to make time for prayer. He prayed the Rosary prostrate on the floor or kneeling, followed by his personal prayers, and would then go to the chapel in order to prepare for 7:30 Mass. According to his press secretary, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, his sixty to ninety minutes of private prayer before Mass were the best part of his day.
At the chapel, he would kneel before the Blessed Sacrament at his prie-dieu. The top of his wooden kneeler could be opened, and it was brimming with notes people had given to him, seeking his prayers for all kinds of petitions, including healings, the conversion of family members, or successful pregnancies. Perhaps thirty to forty new petitions were given to him each day, and he would pray specifically over every one. He said that they were kept there and were always present "in my consciousness, even if they cannot be literally repeated every day."
He told
one of his biographers, "There was a time when I thought that one had to
limit the 'prayer of petition.' That time has passed. The further I
advance along the road mapped out for me by Providence, the more I feel
the need to have recourse to this kind of prayer." Quite often, those
who sent the petitions wrote back in thanksgiving for answered prayers.
His assistant secretary noted that most of them expressed gratitude for
the gift of parenthood. Not only did he intercede before the tabernacle
for these individuals as if they were his most intimate friends, he
routinely sought information about the progress of the cases. The
liturgy would not begin until he had before him the petitions people had
asked him to offer on their behalf.
After going to the
sacristy to don his vestments for Mass, he would again kneel or sit for
ten to twenty minutes.When visitors arrived to join him for Mass, they
would always find him kneeling in prayer. Some said, "he looked like he
was speaking with the Invisible." One of the masters of ceremonies
added, "it seemed as if the Pope were not present among us." Bishop
Andrew Wypych, who was ordained to the diaconate by Cardinal Karol
Wojtya, added, "You could see that he physically was there, but one
could sense that he was immersed in the love of the Lord. They were
united in talking to each other."
During the celebration of the
Eucharist, one observer noticed, "He lingered lovingly over every
syllable that recalled the Last Supper as if the words were new to him."
Then, after the moment of Consecration, he would genuflect before
Christ's presence on the altar with tremendous reverence. Visitors to
his private Masses noticed that you could hear the thud of his knee
slamming down upon the marble floor when he became too weak to support
himself as he genuflected. After Mass, a lengthy time of thanksgiving
followed before the Holy Father greeted guests and gave each of them a
Rosary.
The Eucharist was the principal reason for his
priesthood. He said, "For me, the Mass constitutes the center of my life
and my every day." He added, "nothing means more to me or gives me
greater joy than to celebrate Mass each day and to serve God's people in
the Church." John Paul didn't merely offer the Mass. He lived it. Like
the Eucharist itself, he became an immolation of love — a living sacrifice
offered to the Father for the salvation of mankind. Because of his deep
faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, he was adamant
with priests and bishops about how the Mass ought to be celebrated.He
told a group of American bishops, "This is why it is so important that
liturgical law be respected. The priest, who is the servant of the
liturgy, not its inventor or producer, has a particular responsibility
in this regard, lest he empty liturgy of its true meaning or obscure its
sacred character."
Prayer was the rhythm of the Holy Father's
life. He made time to pray before and after his meals, and interspersed
his Breviary prayers (the Liturgy of the Hours) throughout the day and
night, calling it: "very important, very important." At six in
the morning, at noon, and again at six in the evening, he would stop
whatever he was doing to pray the Angelus, just as he had done while
working in the chemical plant in Poland. He prayed several Rosaries each
day, went to confession every week, and did not let a day pass without
receiving Holy Communion. Each Friday (and every day in Lent), he prayed
the Stations of the Cross, and preferred to do this in the garden on
the roof of the Papal Apartments. During Lent, he would eat one complete
meal a day, and always fasted on the eve of our Lady's feast days. He
remarked, "If the bishop doesn't set an example by fasting, then who
will?" The Holy Father knew that his first duty to the Church was his
interior life.
He declared, "the shepherd should walk at the
head and lay down his life for his sheep. He should be the first when it
comes to sacrifice and devotion."
Each night, he looked out
his window to Saint Peter's Square and to the whole world, and made the
sign of the cross over it, blessing the world goodnight. For many years,
he ascended to the roof of the Papal Apartments to offer this nightly
blessing. Visitors standing in the square noticed that his light often
went off between eleven and one in the morning. One of his biographers
noted that he seldom went to bed before midnight. As a priest and
bishop, and perhaps as pope, he sometimes slept on the bare floor. In
Kraków, his housekeeper knew of this, and noticed that he would crumple
his bed sheets to conceal it.
The Old Lion
More remarkable than his daily, weekly, and annual traditions of prayer
was his habit of incessant prayer. While walking from place to place
inside the Vatican or outside, prayer became as natural and vital to him
as his breath. While strolling to his next appointment, Archbishop
Mieczys?aw Mokrzycki said, "he was immersed in prayer for those five
minutes. He was then beyond our reach, turned off. There were dozens of
moments like that during the day. We knew that we were not supposed to
disturb the Holy Father then because he was with God. They were united
in an unusual way." He added that John Paul's mysticism was evidenced by
the fact that he would "disconnect" himself from his surroundings and
appeared oblivious to external distractions. Cardinal Dziwisz noticed
that even times of work were "peppered with prayers, with short bursts
of prayer." One member of the Curia noted, "No sooner does he pause than he starts praying..." Cardinal Christoph Schönborn observed:
The Holy Father looked as though he never stopped praying. I never saw anyone so constantly immersed in union with Christ and God, as though it were a permanent state that led him to submit everything he did unto the Lord's hands. His attentiveness to others, his gestures, words and readings — everything he did was bathed in prayer, like the great mystics.
It could be said that he didn't make time to enter prayer. Rather, he made time for the sake of others to come out of it.
Because he believed that every encounter was providential, he stated,
"As soon as I meet people, I pray for them." Those who had the blessing
of meeting him in person would not be surprised by this information,
based upon how fully present he was to each person he encountered. One
of his secretaries affirmed this: "He prayed for everyone he met. He
prayed before and after the meeting." This didn't apply only to formal
meetings, as he could often be seen praying the Rosary as he waved at
crowds from his Popemobile.
However, what's more fascinating
than when the Pope prayed or what he prayed, is how he prayed. While
hiking atop the Italian Alps, Dziwisz told the guide, "Lino, the Holy
Father wants to be alone for a little while in recollection, let's look
for a good spot." They noticed a large flat rock and guided him over to
it. The guide explained what happened next in his book, The Secret Life of John Paul II:
It was then that I witnessed for the first time something I will truly never forget, and that — overcoming my reservations — I am telling here for the first time. I seek to do so accurately and with purity of heart. His head was bowed and he was absorbed in prayer, totally immobile, without even the slightest movement. He was in a sort of trance — or I dare say, ecstasy — which he was modestly hiding from us. In fact, I couldn't see his face or even tell whether his hands were folded or not. Nor if his eyes were open or closed. Instead, I had the very clear sensation that I was observing someone endowed with a spiritual power that was no longer human; someone who no longer belonged to this world, but was living those minutes in complete communion with God, with the saints, and with all the souls of heaven. The unreal sparkle of the snow all around emphasized this impression. A complete silence had descended. Everything was motionless, as if a state of contemplation had taken hold of every element of nature. . . . He never moved so much as a millimeter, his muscles were motionless like everything else around him. Then, the strangest thing occurred. The Pope, after [the] tiniest imperceptible movement, revived and then slowly got up, and when we looked at our watches, realized that almost an hour had gone by.
Such episodes of deep prayer were commonplace, according to those who spent time with the Holy Father. In 1995, when John Paul visited the Sacred Heart Cathedral (now Basilica) in Newark, he made a visit to the Blessed Sacrament before departing. When he knelt at the prie-dieu, Cardinal McCarrick remembered:
It was my hope, my intention to kneel a little behind him. I couldn't. I couldn't. As soon as he knelt, it was like a sacred space, like a tent was around him, and I moved away. I moved three or four yards back and stood by one of the stone pillars of the cathedral. Because you had to leave space there. . . . He went into the deepest prayer. . . . I've rarely seen anyone in that state of such deep prayerfulness. He wasn't with us any more. He was with the Lord. He knelt and then in ten seconds he was gone. It was so holy, I moved back. And he was there, for about maybe seven or eight minutes, lost in total prayer.
Then, Monsignor
Dziwisz took his elbow and he gently got up, turned around with a great
smile, waved to the people, and walked on.
Cardinal Justin
Rigali recalled a similar incident that took place in Canada when the
Pope was kneeling in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, prior to the
beginning of a ceremony. The master of ceremonies decided it was time
for the Holy Father to wrap it up and suddenly said, "The Pope will now
rise . . ." Rigali recalled what happened next:
Well, the Pope didn't rise. He just stayed put. And the poor man [the master of ceremonies], whatever got into him, it went from bad to worse: So he waited a couple of minutes, and then he made the second announcement: "The Pope will now rise." Incredible. And the Pope didn't rise. So then he just knelt down and stayed quiet. When the Pope was ready, then he rose and went on.
Pope John Paul II raises the Eucharist during the celebration of Mass in St. Louis during his last visit to the United States in January of 1999. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)
|
Sometimes when John Paul emerged
from such interludes of deep prayer, he didn't seem refreshed, but was
instead preoccupied and burdened with the weight of information that
others were not privy to. On one such occasion in the wilderness, a
witness reported that he appeared to be "shaken to the core" and
immediately requested that he descend from the mountain to return to his
lodging. Within hours, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, and the Gulf War
began.
The stirrings of John Paul's deep interior life often
manifested themselves exteriorly. Father Maciej Zieba noticed, "When he
prayed, it was physical. He sighed deeply and made grunting sounds like a
lion. Some of us called him the old lion. This was a mark of respect,
the way you respect the king of the realm." Countless visitors to his
private chapel witnessed his unforgettable prayerful groaning as he
knelt before the tabernacle. The Holy Father explained:
In order to understand profoundly the meaning of prayer, one should meditate for a long time on the following passage from the Letter to the Romans: "For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved" (Rom 8:1924).
And here again
we come across the apostle's words: "The Spirit too comes to the aid of
our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the
Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings" (cf. Rom 8:26).
From his childhood, his father instilled in Karol a strong devotion to
the Holy Spirit. He recalled his father telling him, "You don't pray to
the Holy Spirit enough. You ought to pray to him." Karol, Sr., gave him a
prayer book on the Holy Spirit, which he used throughout his life, and
also taught him the following prayer and instructed him to recite it
daily:
Holy Spirit, I ask you for the gift of Wisdom to better know You and Your divine perfections, for the gift of Understanding to clearly discern the spirit of the mysteries of the holy faith, for the gift of Counsel that I may live according to the principles of this faith, for the gift of Knowledge that I may look for counsel in You and that I may always find it in You, for the gift of Fortitude that no fear or earthly preoccupations would ever separate me from You, for the gift of Piety that I may always serve Your Majesty with a filial love, for the gift of the Fear of the Lord that I may dread sin, which offends You, O my God.
He kept this
prayer on a handwritten note, and prayed it every day for the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, offering a Hail Mary and an Our Father for each of the
seven gifts. He said this prayer resulted a half century later in his
encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et Vivificantem. His
father's witness may have given birth to an encyclical, but its greatest
effects took place within the Holy Father's soul. As Saint Louis de
Montfort explained, "the greatest things on earth are done interiorly in
the hearts of faithful souls." The Pope's relationship with the Holy
Spirit was summed up best when he was asked, "How does the Pope pray?"
He answered, "You would have to ask the Holy Spirit!"
Eucharistic Amazement
Although John Paul loved communing with God in the wilderness, it was
clear that his favorite place to pray was before the Blessed Sacrament.
Witnesses report that he spent hours at a time — and sometimes the entire
night — prostrate on the marble floor before the tabernacle, with his arms
outstretched in the shape of the cross. One witness remarked that this
union with our Lord in the Eucharist allowed him "not merely to speak to
Christ, but actually to converse with him." As a bishop, he told
college students that for each person, the reality of the Eucharist
means "we have two people in one another's presence: Our Lord and me."
Cardinal Dziwisz reported that you could sometimes hear him talking
aloud with God, having a dialogue. The Holy Father believed that
authentic prayer is when a person desires to be as attentive to God as
he is to us; when one yearns to hear God's voice, just as God yearns to
hear each person. In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, he wrote, "Man achieves the fullness of prayer not when he expresses himself, but when he lets God be most fully present in prayer."
When a tabernacle wasn't available, John Paul would make do. One of his
aides found him kneeling at a sink in a washroom because there was no
other private place to prepare for Mass at the Pordenone Fair. Another
witness walked into a utility closet at the Pope's summer residence and
inadvertently found him "rapt in prayer."
The Holy Father often spent hours at a time writing before the Blessed Sacrament. He explained:
I have always been convinced that the chapel is a place of special inspiration. What a privilege to be able to live and work in the shadow of His Presence. . . . It is not always necessary to enter physically into the chapel in order to enter spiritually into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I have always sensed that Christ was the real owner of my episcopal residence, and that we bishops were just short-term tenants. That's how it was in Franciszkanska Street for almost twenty years, and that's how it is here in the Vatican. In his chapel in Kraków, the kneeler was more of a prayer desk, with a desktop large enough so that he could write while kneeling or sitting before the Eucharist. A lamp was installed nearby so he could work at any time of night as well. As pope, he spent time in adoration before every Wednesday audience, and always made a short visit before and after every meal. He also spent long amounts of time before the Blessed Sacrament before and after his pilgrimages. Marathons of prayer were not unusual for him. One papal photographer recalled, "I remember that in Vilnius he prayed for six hours in a row . . ."
To John Paul, it is not enough for Catholics to receive the Eucharist. One also must contemplate it. He said that when one ponders the love that is present in the tabernacle:
. . . love is ignited within us, love is renewed within us. Therefore, these are not hours spent in idleness, when we isolate ourselves from our work, but these are moments, hours, when we undertake something that constitutes the deepest meaning of all of our work. For no matter how numerous our activities, our ministries, however numerous our concerns, our exertions — if there is no love, everything becomes meaningless.
When we devote our time to ponder the mystery of love, to allow it to radiate in our hearts, we are preparing ourselves in the best possible way for any kind of service, for any activity, for any charitable work.
His life of contemplation was the wellspring of his thoughts, words, and actions. As he said, "all activities should be rooted in prayer as though in a spiritual soil." His job was not to advance his own opinions and agendas, but to transmit to the world the fruit of his own interior life. One of his aides noted that he made "all of his major decisions . . . on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament."
The Pope
warned others, "In the absence of a deep inner life, a priest will
imperceptibly turn into an office clerk, and his apostolate will turn
into a parish office routine, just solving daily problems." He knew well
the primacy of "be-ing" over "do-ing," as can be seen when he prayed:
"Help us, Jesus, to understand that in order 'to do' in your Church,
also in the field of the new evangelization that is so urgently needed,
we must first learn 'to be,' that is, to stay with you, in your sweet
company, in adoration."
John Paul's extravagant love for Christ
in the Eucharist sometimes became problematic for his handlers. In
fact, the prefect of the Papal Household often warned the organizers of
papal events to make sure not to allow the Pope to pass within view of a
place where the Eucharist was reserved. Otherwise, he'd surely enter
the chapel for prolonged periods of time and the entire schedule would
be thrown off.
In 1995, Father Michael White was invited to
organize the Pope's visit to Baltimore on behalf of the archdiocese.
Prior to the Holy Father's arrival, the chief organizer for papal
pilgrimages, Father Roberto Tucci, SJ, came to Maryland to scout out the
venues and make the necessary arrangements for John Paul's trip. When
he arrived at the archbishop's residence, he noticed that one of the
doors in the hallway the Pope would pass through opened into a chapel
with the Blessed Sacrament.
He instructed Father White, "Keep
that door closed so he doesn't know there's a chapel in there." Upon the
Pope's arrival, the door was closed, and John Paul took some time to
eat and rest at the residence. When it was time to leave, he walked down
the hall, which was lined with doors leading into various rooms, passed
by the door of the chapel, then suddenly stopped. He looked back at the
door, then looked over at Father Tucci, and without saying a word,
wagged his finger at him and shook his head. Father White recalled:
He's never been in this place before, never set eyes on the place, and there was nothing about the door that distinguished it in any way as a chapel. It was just one more door in a corridor of doors. But he turned right back around, he opened that door up, and he went into the chapel and he prayed.
According to Father White, the Holy
Father remained in prayer long enough to "do some damage" to the
schedule, then left the residence to head to his appointment. The Holy
Father ended his visit to Baltimore at St. Mary's Seminary in Roland
Park. A helicopter was staged on the front lawn of the seminary to take
him to the airport, where he was to meet with the vice president of the
United States. A crowd of enthusiastic future priests gathered on the
steps to wave at the Pope when he arrived, but John Paul's handlers were
clear about the schedule: There was no time for him to make a visit.
The seminary had been begging for months to be included in the Holy
Father's schedule, but time would not allow it.
However, after
seeing the young men, John Paul pulled Father Tucci aside and informed
him in Italian that he wanted to see the seminary — much to the amazement
of that community when they were hurriedly informed. Once there, Father
White was astonished that the Pope instinctively knew where to go:
He walked in the door, and this was completely unplanned and unscripted at this point. The Secret Service hadn't even done a complete sweep of the building because this wasn't part of the deal. And he just walked into that building and walked right to the chapel, like he knew where it was. It was just remarkable.
After spending a generous
amount of time before the Eucharist, briefly viewing the facility, and
greeting the future priests — with evident joy and absolutely no sense of
urgency — he proceeded to his meeting at BWI Airport, where he had kept
Vice President Gore and the entire entourage for the departure ceremony
waiting!
The Pope's spiritual priorities were proof that he
believed the Eucharist was the greatest treasure the Church possesses.
Because of its inestimable value, he felt it was his mission to
"rekindle this Eucharistic 'amazement'" in the hearts of the faithful.
To help Christians understand the reality of Christ's presence in the
Blessed Sacrament, he appealed to the human experience of love. During a
homily in Brazil, he asked:
How many times in our lives have we seen two people separated who love each other? During the ugly and bitter war, in my youth, I saw young people leave without hope of return, parents torn from their homes, not knowing if they would one day find their loved ones. Upon leaving, a gesture, a picture, or an object passes from hand to hand in a certain way in order to prolong presence in absence. And nothing more. Human love is capable only of these symbols.
Motivated by an even greater love, when the hour had come for Christ to part with his disciples, he had the power to leave his Church with more than a gesture. In his absence, he left his presence. John Paul explained:
Thus, to say farewell, the Lord Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man, did not leave his friends a symbol, but the reality of himself. . . . Under the species of bread and wine, He is really present, with his Body and his Blood, his Soul and Divinity.
For John Paul, the question is not whether Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, but rather whether Catholics are truly present to God in their midst! For this reason, he spoke of adoration as "an important daily practice" that one should not omit in the course of the day. He declared:
The Eucharist is the secret of my day. It gives strength and meaning to all my activities of service to the Church and to the whole world. . . . Let Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament speak to your hearts. It is he who is the true answer of life that you seek. He stays here with us: he is God with us. Seek him without tiring, welcome him without reserve, love him without interruption: today, tomorrow, forever.
If a
person is unable to visit or receive the Eucharist, John Paul
recommended that he or she make a spiritual communion, taking a moment
to invite Jesus into one's heart.
For John Paul, the key to
rekindling Eucharistic love is to look to Mary, who was the first
"tabernacle" in history. In his encyclical on the Eucharist, he
explained, "And is not the enraptured gaze of Mary as she contemplated
the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her arms that
unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every time we receive
Eucharistic communion?"
Today, John Paul's tomb rests in the
most fitting of locations: in the heart of the Church in Saint Peter's
Basilica, between the Chapel of the Pietà and the Chapel of the Blessed
Sacrament. Even in death, he reminds the faithful of what he said in
life: "Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own
deficiency?"
For individual copies of Saint John Paul The Great: His Five Loves go here.
For bulk copies of Saint John Paul The Great: His Five Loves go here.
This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.
Please show your appreciation by making a $3 donation. CERC is entirely reader supported.
Acknowledgement
Jason Evert. "John Paul II and The Blessed Sacrament." chapter 9 from Saint John Paul The Great: His Five Loves (Lakewood, CO: Totus Tuus Press, 2014).
Reprinted by permission of the author, Jason Evert.
The Author
Jason Evert has spoken about the Catholic faith to more than one million people on six continents and is the author of more than a dozen books, including Saint John Paul The Great: His Five Loves, Pure Manhood, If You Really Loved Me, Pure Faith, Theology of the Body for Teens, and How to Find Your Soulmate without Losing Your Soul. He and his wife Crystalina run the website Chastity Project and live in Colorado with their children.
Copyright © 2014 Jason Evert