{"id":1788,"date":"2016-10-22T11:09:36","date_gmt":"2016-10-22T15:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=1788"},"modified":"2016-10-22T11:09:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T15:09:36","slug":"pope-saint-john-paul-ii-a-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=1788","title":{"rendered":"Pope Saint John Paul II, a Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/John-Paul-II.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1789 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/John-Paul-II.jpg\" alt=\"john-paul-ii\" width=\"116\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a>Today is the memorial of Pope Saint John Paul II, who was installed as the 264<sup>th<\/sup> successor of Saint Peter on this day in 1978, which seems aeons ago in more ways than one.\u00a0 An era without the Internet, Facebook and smartphones, scarcely imaginable.\u00a0 His feast was added by Pope Francis two years ago when John Paul was canonized, a welcome addition to the calendar of saints, not least since I happen to share, by a quirk of my own parents\u2019 choice, the name he adopted.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The greatness of a man such as he can only be measured in historical terms:\u00a0 His saintly life, formed and shaped by his acceptance of grace and his own disciplined habits, his missionary journeys, his obvious love for each peson he met, his voluminous writings, of a spiritual and intellectual depth that defies description, and which will guide \u00a0the Church, the world, \u00a0and all of our own consciences, through history, one would think until Christ comes again. \u00a0Then the example of his death, accepting the suffering, whose depths we may never know, with a calm and serene resignation to the will of God, living out his own profound meditation on this mystery in his 1984 Letter <em>Salvifici Doloris<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All I can recommend is that you delve into what he wrote, even little bits and snippets, his audiences and addresses, his encyclicals and letters, all of which which are truly transformative. I know it changes the lives of the students with whom I read a number of his works, year by year.\u00a0 We as Catholics are called not to focus over-much upon the travails, follies, even the evils of this world, the form of which is already passing away.\u00a0 Our eyes, with Pope John Paul, should be on our heavenly homeland, towards which we are all journeying.\u00a0 If we with him and Our Lady, to whom the great Pontiff was so devoted, but say a small <em>fiat<\/em> to God for what he wants to do with our lives, we will soon be with him and all the saints in the heavenly Jerusalem.\u00a0 You may be surprised at what fruits may be borne on the way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Pope Saint John Paul II, <em>ora pro nobis<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the memorial of Pope Saint John Paul II, who was installed as the 264th successor of Saint Peter on this day in 1978, which seems aeons ago in more ways than one.\u00a0 An era without the Internet, Facebook and smartphones, scarcely imaginable.\u00a0 His feast was added by Pope Francis two years ago when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1790,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions\/1790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}