John Paul the Great

I seem to do my reading in little clusters. This year I am reading Witness to Hope with my 18 year old son. Reading aloud makes it slow enough going that it feels like we are living along with him.

First of all, there is a whole world of Polish romanticism out there that I never knew about. According to the book, Romanticism in Poland was unique and very Catholic in many ways, and deeply shaped the thinking of the young Karol Wojtyla

I was also interested in the Calvary of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska --- a grouping of 24 chapels nearby the town where Karol grew up, where Poles and others still go on pilgrimage.

A translation of one of John Paul's poems, written as if in Christ's words:

Learn from me, my dear ones, how to hide,
for where I am hidden I abide....
[T]here is a Beauty more real
concealed in the living blood.

A morsel of bread is more real
than the universe,
more full of existence, more full of the Word —
a song overflowing, the sea,
a mist confusing the sundial—
God in exile.


TS Eliot wrote on a similar note:

Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in the darkness and
Against the Word in the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.


John Paul on St Vincent de Paul
Form and Fragement -- scholarly article on Simone Weil
Catholic Tradition