The Beginning Of It All

George Weigel published a beautiful reflection about his experience at the golden wedding anniversary of a couple that knew Saint John Paul II very well. In fact, their friend Karol Wojtyła presided over their wedding in 1964. Weigel writes:

As I said to Stephen afterwards, as we watched Wojtyla’s kids, no longer kids, shake hands, embrace, and offer flowers to Piotr and Teresa, “This is the beginning of World Youth Day, right here.” I could just as easily have added Love and Responsibility; the Theology of the Body; the 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio; the 1988 apostolic letter on women, Mulieris Dignitatem; and the 1995 Letter to Families. For as I noted in a toast at the anniversary dinner the Maleckis’ sons had arranged, the network of now-not-so-young friends that had gathered around Karol Wojtyla—men and women who resolutely refuse to think of themselves as something special—had in fact helped bend the history of the Church, and the world, in a more humane direction.

For more, see Weigel’s article on First Things.