5 Ways To Prepare For The Feast Of St. John Paul II

On Thursday, October 22^nd, the Church will celebrate the feast of Saint John Paul II. In order to honor our beloved Holy Father, we’ve come up with some ways to prepare for this special day.

1.   Pray

There is no better way to prepare for St. John Paul II’s feast than by opening ourselves to the Lord in prayer. One idea is to join us in nine days of prayer, seeking the late Holy Father’s intercession for a particular intention. We will begin praying this novena tomorrow. You can also prepare by praying the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, or by attending daily Mass. It is through prayer that God is able to draw close to us, and because St. John Paul II is present in heaven with the Father now, prayer is our best chance of drawing closer to our beloved Holy Father. 

2.  Fast

St. John Paul II once said that, “prayer acquires power if it is joined with fasting.” Consider fasting in preparation for the great saint’s feast. Give up sweets, meat, or perhaps different forms of media, like Facebook or TV shows. Making some small sacrifice is a powerful way to prepare our hearts for the festal celebrations.

The Pilgrim's Way: A Great Gift

As we prepare for the feast of Saint John Paul II, we invite you to continue on this pilgrimage through our permanent exhibit, A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II. We hope you will walk through each of the nine galleries with us, so that you can get a taste of the spiritual and informational journey that awaits you here at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine.

This week we will explore the eighth gallery: A Great Gift. This gallery covers the end of St. John Paul II’s life, and it invites pilgrims to reflect on two themes in his teachings: the gift of the Eucharist and the renewal of the priesthood.

The Eucharist is the greatest of gifts, for through it the Incarnation is made present to all mankind. It is the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Connected with this, is the gift of the priesthood. Priests give up everything for the Gospel, and so the priesthood is a form of union with Christ's sacrificial gift of Himself to the Church and to the world.

Give Without Pay

In his 2002 Message for Lent, Saint John Paul II challenged the Church with the Lord’s words: “‘You received without paying, give without pay’” (Mt 10:8). “The heavenly Father’s saving plan was completed in the free and total gift to us of the only begotten Son,” the late Holy Father wrote. Man did not deserve such a gift, but out of love, God freely chose to give His own life in order to draw us “back into communion with himself.”

This free and total gift was the perfect sacrifice, and it stands forever as the model of sacrificial love. The Lenten season is a fitting time to recall “the mystery of the Lord’s Death and Resurrection,” as Saint John Paul II wrote, and it is a time when all Christians should “marvel in their heart of hearts at the greatness of such a gift.” 

In recognizing the price of his own redemption, man cannot help but feel profound gratitude for God’s sacrifice. We express this gratitude through prayer, celebration of the Sacraments, and as the late Holy Father reminded the Church, a free and total gift of ourselves:

Since we have received this life freely, we must in turn offer it freely to our brothers and sisters. This is what Jesus asked of the disciples when he sent them out as his witnesses in the world: “You received without paying, give without pay.” And the first gift to be given is the gift of a holy life, bearing witness to the freely given love of God. May the Lenten journey be for all believers an unceasing summons to enter more deeply into this special vocation of ours. As believers, we must be open to a life marked by “gratuitousness,” by the giving of ourselves unreservedly to God and neighbor.

As we accept the gift of grace, given to us through the sacrificial love of God Himself, we cannot help but give it back to Him through lives of holiness and gratuitousness. We cannot help but fall more deeply into our unique vocations and, like Jesus, give our very selves to others without asking anything in return.

I Have Looked For You

The gifts under your tree may be gone, but the spirit of Christmas continues as the Church prepares to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord. We remember the magi of the east who travelled a great distance in order to adore the Christ child and present Him with gifts of great value.

In a 1979 address to young people, Saint John Paul II suggested that each person learn from the pilgrim kings, adopting the same attitude of adoration and giving. The late Holy Father said:

…modern man—the modern youth—meets God when he opens up to him with the interior gift of his human “ego,” to accept and reciprocate the immense gifts which he bestowed, in the first place: the gift of existence, the gift of the Redemption, the gift of the Faith.

All that is in us as persons is given to us by God, and here John Paul II encourages us to give it all back to the Father who loves us. Here, at the beginning of his pontificate, he spoke of life as a gift of love. In his humility, St. John Paul II probably didn’t know that his own life would be held up as model of how this can be done.

Through a series of posts here on Open Wide the Doors, we will begin to explore the themes present in our exhibit on the life and legacy of the late Holy Father. Titled A Gift of Love: The Life of Saint John Paul II, the 16,000 square foot exhibit inspires pilgrims to learn more about the great saint and to imitate his life of gift.

Building Up The Body Of Christ

…he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets,

others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers,

to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry,

for building up the Body of Christ,

until we all attain to the unity of faith

and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood

to the extent of the full stature of Christ,

so that we may no longer be infants,

tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching

arising from human trickery,

from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming.

Rather, living the truth in love,

we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ,

from whom the whole Body,

joined and held together by every supporting ligament,

with the proper functioning of each part,

brings about the Body’s growth and builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4: 11-16

The Human Person As Gift

Last month, Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield published a beautiful reflection on the legacy of St. John Paul II. He specifically wrote about the late Holy Father’s teachings on the human person’s identity as gift:

Throughout his pontificate, St. John Paul II fearlessly taught the great truth that countless generations had long known, a truth confirmed by both sacred Scripture and the living tradition of the Church: Human life and the beauty of man and woman are not toys or tools; they are gifts, and as such, are meant to show us something not only about ourselves, but about God.

For the full article, see the Columbia Magazine website.

A Journey Of Gift

Today the Church embarks on the liturgical season of Lent.  In his last Lenten message, Blessed John Paul II wrote that during Lent, “a spiritual journey is outlined for us that prepares us to relive the Great Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ.”

During his last Lent here on earth, the late Holy Father experienced this journey in a unique way. As his health failed, he suffered much like Christ did in preparation for death. The debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease, the wounds from the assassination attempt, multiple surgeries, and the loss of his voice humbled him before the world and before God.

Even as he aged and became more vulnerable due to sickness, Blessed John Paul II never hid himself from the world. As he wrote in his final message for Lent, “reaching old age is a sign of the Most High’s gracious benevolence.” Longevity is a “special divine gift.”

He continued:

If growing old, with its inevitable conditions, is accepted serenely in the light of faith, it can become an invaluable opportunity for better comprehending the Mystery of the Cross, which gives full sense to human existence.

Newness, Harmony, And Mission

In his homily for the Feast of Pentecost, Pope Francis reflected on three words linked to the workings of the Holy Spirit. These are newness, harmony and mission.

This reflection is helpful for those looking to go deeper into the significance of Pentecost Sunday. Here at the Shrine, we also find it helpful for connecting the pontificates of our beloved Blessed John Paul II and our new Holy Father, Pope Francis.

First of all, the Holy Spirit plays a role in the newness of change in our lives. In a culture of planners, new direction is not always welcomed with open arms. “Yet throughout the history of salvation,” Pope Francis said, “whenever God reveals himself, he brings newness and change, and demands our complete trust.” He continues:

Noah, mocked by all, builds an ark and is saved; Abram leaves his land with only a promise in hand; Moses stands up to the might of Pharaoh and leads his people to freedom; the apostles, huddled fearfully in the Upper Room, go forth with courage to proclaim the Gospel. This is not a question of novelty for novelty’s sake, the search for something new to relieve our boredom, as is so often the case in our own day. The newness which God brings into our life is something that actually brings fulfillment, that gives true joy, true serenity, because God loves us and desires only our good.

Now Blessed John Paul II and Pope Francis do have much in common. They are both similar in their openness to others and in the genuineness of their prayers. They both have a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, and the chaplain of the Blessed John Paul II Shrine, Rev. Gregory Gresko, also notes that Pope Francis “is continuing the call of Blessed John Paul II in telling us ‘Be not afraid’ to give yourself over completely to the loving mercy of God.”

Yet the two are certainly not the same, and Pope Francis has already made some unique choices during his pontificate that challenge the faithful to look humbly inside of ourselves so that we may better perceive what is going on around us and how we can serve those in need. 

Let Us Pray For Vocations

To consider life as a vocation encourages interior freedom, stirring within the person a desire for the future, as well as the rejection of a notion of existence that is passive, boring, and banal. In this way, life takes on the value of a "gift received which, by its nature, tends to become a good given" (Document New Vocations for a New Europe, 1997, 16, b). Man shows that he has been reborn in the Spirit (cf. John 3, 3-5) when he learns to follow the way of the New Commandment: "that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15, 12). One could say that, in a certain sense, love is the DNA of the children of God; it is the "holy vocation" by which we have been called "in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago, and now has manifested through the appearance of our Saviour Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 1, 9-10). 

At the root of every vocational journey there is the Emmanuel, the God-with-us. He shows us that we are not alone in fashioning our lives, because God walks with us, in the midst of our ups-and-downs, and, if we want him to, he weaves with each of us a marvellous tale of love, unique and irreproducible, and, at the same time, in harmony with all humanity and the entire cosmos. To discover the presence of God in our individual stories, not to feel orphans any longer, but rather to know that we have a Father in whom we can trust completely - this is the great turning-point that transforms our merely human outlook and leads man to understand, as Gaudium et spes affirms, that he "cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself" (n. 24).  

…We need men and women who, by their witness, "remind the baptized of the fundamental values of the Gospel," and who foster "in the People of God an awareness of the need to respond with holiness of life to the love of God poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit, by reflecting in their conduct the sacramental consecration which is brought about by God's power in Baptism, Confirmation or Holy Orders" (Vita consecrata, 33). 

A Gift From Our Church Leaders

On this feast of St. Nicholas, perhaps we should reflect on one of the many gifts we have received from our Church leaders during this Year of Faith. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prepared a list of recommendations for Christians who would like to dive deeper into their Catholic faith during this time of growth.

In November 1985, Blessed John Paul II said:

Faith is the principal foundation, it is the cornerstone... From faith comes custom, the style of life and practical direction in every circumstance.

How appropriate is it then, for us to grow in our faith as we direct our hearts toward the coming Lord?