The feast day of St. John Paul II is October 22. In the United States it is an optional memorial, and the date was chosen because on October 22, 1978, he celebrated the Mass that inaugurated his pontificate and told the world not to be afraid to open the doors to Christ. This year the memorial falls on a Thursday, which makes it a fitting day to ask his intercession and to pray the Luminous Mysteries he gave the Church.
Many remember the athletic young pope and the frail old one. Fewer know how much of his life was spent on his knees. Those who worked with him said that the first thing he did every day, long before any meeting, was pray, and that he often seemed to be praying even in a crowd. If you want to honor him this week, the best way is to learn something about how he prayed, and to begin to pray that way yourself.
Who was St. John Paul II?
Karol Wojtyła was born on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, a small town in southern Poland. By the time he was twenty he had lost his mother, his older brother and his father. During the Nazi occupation he worked in a stone quarry and a chemical plant, acted in an underground theater that kept Polish culture alive, and studied for the priesthood in secret in the clandestine seminary run by the Archbishop of Kraków.
He was ordained a priest on November 1, 1946. He became a university chaplain and philosophy professor who took students hiking and kayaking and celebrated Mass for them outdoors along the trail. He was named a bishop at thirty-eight, Archbishop of Kraków in 1964 and a cardinal in 1967, and he took part in the Second Vatican Council.
On October 16, 1978, the cardinals elected him pope. He was the first pope from outside Italy in more than four centuries. His pontificate lasted nearly twenty-seven years. He traveled to more than a hundred countries, began World Youth Day, survived an assassination attempt on May 13, 1981, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, and promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992. He died on April 2, 2005, on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast he had extended to the whole Church five years earlier. Pope Benedict XVI beatified him in 2011, and Pope Francis canonized him on April 27, 2014.
Why is his feast day October 22?
Most saints are remembered on the day of their death, their birthday into heaven. John Paul II died on April 2, which nearly always falls during Lent or the Easter season, when the memorials of saints give way to the great mysteries of the year. So the Church chose another date with deep meaning: October 22, the day he celebrated the Mass that began his ministry as successor of Peter.
In the homily that day he spoke words that would become the theme of his life. Be not afraid, he said, and he begged the nations, their systems and their rulers to open wide the doors to Christ. It echoes Christ's own words to the frightened apostles on the sea:
And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: Be of good heart: it is I, fear ye not.Matthew 14:27
Coming from a man who had lived through Nazi occupation and Communist rule, this was not a slogan. It was a testimony. He had seen what fear does to people, and he had found that Christ is stronger.
How did St. John Paul II pray?
Those who lived alongside him have described a steady daily rhythm. None of it was exotic. All of it is something an ordinary Catholic can imitate in a small way.
He gave God the beginning of the day
He rose early and went to his chapel before anything else, spending a long time in silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament before he celebrated Mass. His secretaries noticed that he often lay prostrate on the floor or knelt with his face in his hands. The morning set the tone for everything that followed. You may not have an hour, but you can give God the first minutes of your day before you look at your phone.
He prayed the Liturgy of the Hours
As every priest promises to do, he prayed the Church's daily prayer of psalms at set times through the day. The psalms gave words to his trust in the middle of enormous pressures, and one of them could stand as a summary of his whole ministry:
The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?Psalm 26 (27):1
He prayed the Rosary every day
Within two weeks of his election he told the faithful that the Rosary was his favorite prayer. He prayed it daily, often walking, and he loved it because it is a way of looking at the face of Christ with the eyes of His Mother. The Catechism describes how the Rosary grew up as a popular form of the Church's prayer (CCC 2678), and John Paul II did more than anyone in our time to renew it.
He went to confession every week
The Pope himself was a penitent. He confessed his sins regularly, by most accounts weekly, because he knew that holiness is not the absence of weakness but the habit of returning to mercy.
He made the Way of the Cross on Fridays
Even when his body was failing, he kept the custom of praying the Stations of the Cross on Fridays. In his final years his own suffering became a kind of living Way of the Cross, and he let the world see it.
If this rhythm sounds like a lot, remember that St. Teresa of Ávila, whom he loved and quoted, taught that prayer is simply friendship with God kept faithfully day after day. You can read more about her approach in our guide to St. Teresa of Ávila on prayer. John Paul II is proof that such friendship can carry a person through anything.
What does Totus Tuus mean?
His motto as bishop and pope was Totus Tuus, Latin for Totally Yours. He took it from St. Louis de Montfort's act of consecration to Jesus through Mary, which he discovered as a young factory worker during the war. At first he worried that devotion to Mary might draw him away from Christ. Reading Montfort, he came to see the opposite: Mary always leads to her Son, and entrusting yourself to her is the surest way to belong entirely to Him.
The words of Christ from the cross were the foundation of this trust:
When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.John 19:26-27
The Catechism teaches that the Church's devotion to Mary is intrinsic to Christian worship, while differing essentially from the adoration given to God alone (CCC 971). The M on his papal coat of arms, under the cross, said the same thing in a single image.
Montfort's own short formula of consecration, which inspired the motto, is a simple prayer anyone can learn by heart:
Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt.
I am all yours, and all that I have is yours.
What are the Luminous Mysteries?
On October 16, 2002, the twenty-fourth anniversary of his election, John Paul II published an apostolic letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae. In it he proposed five new mysteries drawn from the public life of Jesus, which he called the Mysteries of Light:
- The Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan
- The Wedding Feast at Cana
- The Proclamation of the Kingdom and the call to conversion
- The Transfiguration
- The Institution of the Eucharist
He suggested praying them on Thursdays. Since his memorial falls on a Thursday this year, there is no better way to keep it than to pray a decade or all five Luminous Mysteries, asking him to pray with you.
Why do we ask the saints to pray for us?
When the Church canonizes someone, she recognizes the power of the Holy Spirit at work in that person's life and offers them to us as models and intercessors (CCC 828). The saints in heaven do not stop caring for the Church on earth. They are, as the Catechism puts it, more closely united to Christ, and they never cease to intercede for us (CCC 956). Asking St. John Paul II to pray for you is like asking a holy friend to pray for you, except that this friend now sees God face to face.
People often ask his intercession for courage, for young people and families, for the sick and elderly, for those struggling with fear, and for the grace to return to confession or to the Church.
A prayer to St. John Paul II
St. John Paul II, you gave yourself totally to Christ through the hands of Mary, and you taught the world not to be afraid. Pray for me, that I may open the doors of my heart to Christ without holding anything back. Obtain for me the grace to give God the first moments of each day, to love the Rosary, to return often to His mercy in confession, and to carry my crosses with trust. Watch over young people and families, the sick and the dying, and all who are afraid. Lead me, as you were led, to Jesus through Mary. Amen.
You might follow it with an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be, or with the simple words he made his own: Totus Tuus.
How to keep his feast this week
You do not need a pilgrimage to honor him. A few small acts will do:
- Go to Mass on October 22 if you can, since many parishes will celebrate his memorial.
- Pray the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary that Thursday.
- Give God the first ten minutes of your morning, before your phone.
- Make a good confession sometime this week.
- Say the Totus Tuus prayer when you wake and before you sleep.
Above all, take his first words as pope as spoken to you. Whatever you are carrying, Christ is not a threat to your life but its light. Be not afraid to give Him a little more of each day, starting tomorrow morning, and then the morning after that. That is how the young worker from Wadowice became a saint, and it is how we can follow him.