You Want To Be The Stone Floor

During the Second Vatican Council, young Bishop Karol Wojtyła learned much about the Church and her role in the world. During his time in Rome working with both Blessed John XXIII and Paul VI, he also reflected on the importance of the Office of Peter (the Office he would occupy shorty thereafter). Through poetry he expressed the fruits of these reflections:

In this place our feet meet the ground, on which were raised

so many walls and colonnades…if you don’t get lost in them but

                                    go on finding

unity and sense—

it is because She is leading you. She connects not only the

spaces of a

renaissance building, but also spaces In Us, 

who go ahead so very conscious of our weakness and disaster.

It is You, Peter. You want to be the Stone Floor, so that they will

pass over you

(going ahead, not knowing where), that they should go where you

                  lead their feet,

so that they should connect into one the spaces which through

                                    sight help the

thought to be born.

You want to be Him who serves the feet—like rock the hooves of

                                    sheep:

The rock is also the stone floor of the gigantic temple. The Pasture

is the cross.

Wojtyła would soon go on to “serve the feet” as Pope for nearly twenty-seven years.

As part of our countdown to the canonization of Blessed John Paul II, the Blessed John Paul II Shrine is spending the month reflecting on the late Holy Father’s time serving as bishop in Poland. Keep following us here and on our Facebook page for more stories about his life and legacy.

Poem is entitled “Stone Floor,” translated by George Weigel, Sister Emilia Ehrlich, OSU, and Marek Skwarnicki. From Wojtyła, Poezje i dramaty, p. 63. As presented in George Weigel's Witness to Hope, p. 157.