A Way For The Church

As he took the Chair of Saint Peter, Saint John Paul II challenged all people to open wide their hearts to Christ, for it is His “perfect love” that “casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). It is His love that gives man life. In his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, the late Holy Father wrote:

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.

St. John Paul II taught us much about this love that man cannot live without, and we remember this in our permanent exhibit: A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II.

The sainted pontiff showed us this love by visiting his people. Early in his papacy, he made pilgrimages of love to the faithful in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other places throughout the world.

Becoming The John Paul II Shrine

Christian Sanctuaries always and everywhere have been or have sought to be signs of God, of his entering into human history.

-St. John Paul II, Allocution to Rectors of Sanctuaries

Earlier this year, the Saint John Paul II Shrine was designated as a national shrine by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Coming from the Latin scrinium, which describes a chest or case used to store religious objects, a shrine is now generally understood as a sacred space where pilgrims can come to worship God, contemplate His mysteries, or venerate a particular holy figure.

According to our Executive Director Patrick Kelly, the Saint John Paul II National Shrine is

…a place dedicated to the worship of God who became man in Jesus Christ. It is a place of pilgrimage, where the faithful and all people of good will can come to seek the face of Christ in the spirit of, and through the intercession of, Saint John Paul II. Through the shrine’s liturgy and life of prayer, as well as its programs of education and Christian formation, pilgrims will be drawn more deeply into Saint John Paul II’s love for God and for man.

This shrine is a response to Saint John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization. It seeks to be a place of genuine encounter with God that leads to a renewal of individuals, families and society.

As the premier site dedicated to Saint John Paul II in the United States, we are entrusted with the mission of developing and promoting popular devotion to him. Many will come here because of an enduring admiration for Saint John Paul II; others will be introduced to him for the first time. The shrine is here to answer the questions: “Who is Saint John Paul II?” “What does it mean to have a devotion to him?”

Some coming developments to help make this happen will be a new church, scheduled to open in 2015; a reliquary chapel; and a permanent 16,000 square foot exhibit on the life and legacy of Saint John Paul II, to be named A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II.

Happy Birthday St. John Paul II!

What really matters in life

is that we are loved by Christ

and that we love Him in return.

In comparison to the love of Jesus,

everything else is secondary.

And, without the love of Jesus,

everything is useless.

-St. John Paul II

We here at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine are grateful to the late Holy Father who showed us the love of Jesus. On this day of his birth, we also thank God for the gift of John Paul II’s saintly life.

St. John Paul II, Pray for Us! 

Testimony to Divine Mercy

During our Divine Mercy Sunday Mass of Thanksgiving for the Canonization of St. John Paul II, the shrine’s Chaplain Fr. Gregory Gresko gave a beautiful homily that touched on the life and legacy of the late Holy Father. He said:

Wherever he went, Saint John Paul II testified to the truth and power of building the civilization of God’s Love – a society filled with Charity in Truth, founded upon the communion between God and man, and man alongside his neighbor in Christ. John Paul II testified to the real possibility of man’s living in this love, to the degree that man allows himself to be embraced by God’s Divine Mercy and, having been transfigured by this all-merciful Love that pours endlessly from the Heart of Jesus, carries that Divine Mercy into his every relationship – within his family home, throughout his working relationships, in every encounter with his fellow man.

This great testimony of our beloved John Paul II is something that we continue to remember and reflect upon here at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine as we proceed with work on our permanent exhibit celebrating the Holy Father’s life and legacy, slated to open this summer.

For the full text of Fr. Gresko’s homily, see our site.

Saint John Paul II, Pray for Us! 

The Hope And The Joy

In these two men, who looked upon the wounds of Christ and bore witness to his mercy, there dwelt a living hope and an indescribable and glorious joy (1 Pet 1:3,8). The hope and the joy which the risen Christ bestows on his disciples, the hope and the joy which nothing and no one can take from them. The hope and joy of Easter, forged in the crucible of self-denial, self-emptying, utter identification with sinners, even to the point of disgust at the bitterness of that chalice. Such were the hope and the joy which these two holy popes had received as a gift from the risen Lord and which they in turn bestowed in abundance upon the People of God, meriting our eternal gratitude. 

-Pope Francis, Canonization of Saints John XXIII and John Paul II 

After a blessed canonization celebration, we here at the St. John Paul II National Shrine continue to thank the Lord for the gifts our late Holy Father gave to the Church. We also move forward in our work towards building up a testament to his life and legacy in the permanent exhibit slated to open here this summer. Stay tuned for more as we celebrate and promote the life of our beloved St. John Paul II!