Saint John Paul II:

Feast day : 22 October

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint John Paul II, Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church for 26 years from 1978 to 2005. He was the second longest serving Pope and one of the most influential leaders of his time, having to his credit several landmark events and initiatives during his tenure as the Pope. His canonization process was initiated within one month of his death in 2005 by waiving off the 5 year waiting period as an exception to his case. He was canonized on 27 April 2014 by Pope Francis. Though he died on April 2, his feast is celebrated on the anniversary of his papal inauguration which is on October 22nd.

Early life:

Saint John Paul II was born as Karol Jozef Wojtyla on May 18 1920 to Karol Wojtyla and Emilia Kaczorowska, a Polish family living in the Polish town of Wadowice. He was fondly called ‘Lolek’ by his loved ones. His childhood was tragic because he lost all his family members by the time he was twenty years of age. He was close to his elder brother Edmund who was a physician. By the age of nine, he lost his mother who suffered from kidney and heart ailments. Her loss had a deep impact on his life. Two years later he lost his brother Edmund to scarlet fever which he contracted from one of his patients. He felt his loss more intensely than that of his mother. Following these tragedies, he and his father turned to God for comfort. His father often spent the entire night in prayer. Young Karol also turned to prayer and served at Masses, sometimes more than one in a day and often prayed before the Blessed Sacrament. Both father and son spent this period of intense mourning in growing closer to God.

In 1938, they moved to Krakow so that he could complete his matriculation at the Jagiellonian University. There he further grew in his devotion to God and his love for literature and theatre. It was here that he met the reclusive mystic Jan Tyranowski who invited him to join the Living Rosary, a band of young men dedicated to living the 15 mysteries of the Rosary in their lives. During his second year in the University, Nazis invaded Poland. They closed down universities and schools and forbade religious celebrations, religious fraternities and seminaries. It was during this time that he lost his father too which came as a big blow to him. He was now alone in the world and the loss of his father further deepened his interior life. In August 1942, he recognised his calling to be a priest and informed his decision to the Archbishop of Krakow. He was admitted into the underground seminary and began his studies in the seminary. Great caution was exercised to ensure they were done in secret to prevent being caught by the Nazis.

Vocational life:

When the war ended, he was ordained a priest in 1946 and sent to Rome for further studies. It is believed that whilst he was studying in Rome he visited Saint Padre Pio, who heard his confession and told him that one day he would ascend to "the highest post in the Church". When he returned from Rome, he was assigned as a parish priest to a remote village and later to a busy parish in Krakow. He administered his responsibilities with great devotion and worked tirelessly, growing in his prayer and spiritual life too. He was also very successful in ministering to the young people. He could relate to them and won their affection and trust. He had a group of young people who often gathered together and organised hikes and camps in the nearby forests. He would accompany them and address them on topics that mattered to them.

He was consecrated Bishop on September 28, 1958 and became the Archbishop of Krakow in 1963. His participation in Vatican II as well as his successful ministerial work in Poland brought him to the attention of Pope Paul VI who made him a Cardinal in 1967. When Pope John Paul I died unexpectedly, he was elected as the first non Italian Pope in 455 years. He took the name John Paul II as a tribute to his predecessor.

Vocational life:

During his pontificate, he travelled to 129 countries and attracted large crowds wherever he went. In June 1979, he travelled to Poland where he was met by ecstatic crowds. His trip uplifted the spirit of the people who were oppressed under the Communist rule and led to the formation of the Solidarity movement in 1980 which was instrumental in the decline of Communism in Poland and later in other parts of Europe as well.

Several of his other travels were also significant events in history. He is the first Pope to have visited the White House in US where he met the then President Jimmy Carter. He had good relations with the Church of England too and was the first reigning Pope to visit the Queen of England in the UK in 1982. In 2000, he was the first modern Pope to visit Egypt where he met the Coptic Pope and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria. He was the first Pope to visit and pray in an Islamic mosque in Damascus, Syria. On 15 January 1995, during the World Youth day, he offered Holy Mass to an estimated 5-7 million people in Manila, Philippines which is believed to be the largest gathering ever. In March 2000, he became the first pope to visit and pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

He continued to reach out to the young people as he did during his ministry in Poland and now as the Supreme head of the Church he could do more. He pioneered the International World Youth Day event and presided over nine of them during his tenure. Millions of young people were inspired through these events and strengthened in their faith. He led nine ‘dedicated years’ during his pontificate : the Holy Year of the Redemption in 1983–84, the Marian Year in 1987–88, the Year of the Family in 1993–94, the three Trinitarian years of preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000, the Great Jubilee itself, the Year of the Rosary in 2002–3, and the Year of the Eucharist, which began on October 17, 2004, and concluded six months after the Pope’s death. The Great Jubilee of 2000 was a call to the Church to become more aware and to embrace her missionary task for the work of evangelization.

During his pontificate, he wrote 14 papal encyclicals. He was bold and outspoken in his views on world matters, in upholding human rights and condemning injustices. He opposed apartheid, the death penalty, war, violence and was often regarded as traditional in his views. He completed a full-scale reform of the Catholic Church's legal system, Latin and Eastern, and a reform of the Roman Curia. On 11 October 1992, through his apostolic constitution Fidei depositum , he published the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Assasination attempt:

He survived several assassination attempts of which one was near fatal. On 13 May 1981, he was shot in the abdomen and critically wounded by Mehmet AliAgca, a Turkish gunman. He underwent surgery for five hours and survived the attack. He later stated that the Blessed Virgin Mary helped him survive the attack and it was a strange co-incidence that the event occurred on the anniversary of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the poor peasant children in Fatima. Throughout his life he was greatly devoted to the Blessed Virgin and he was convinced that it was through the intercession of Mother Mary that he was saved. A year after the attempt, he travelled to Fatima and placed the bullet that nearly killed him in the crown of the statue of the Blessed Virgin in the Shrine in Fatima. Later he gave the sash he had worn when he was shot to the shrine of the Black Madonna in Czestochowa, Poland. He also visited his assailant Ali Agca in prison and pardoned him.

Death and Canonization:

In 2001 he was diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson's disease. On March 31, 2005 he was diagnosed with urinary tract infection which led to septic shock. He remained in his Vatican apartment and was given the Anointing of the Sick on the same day. On Saturday April 2, 2005 at 15:30, he spoke his last words “Allow me to depart to the house of the Father” and fell into a coma. Four hours later he breathed his last. He was laid to rest in the Tomb of the Popes in St. Peter’s Basilica. The Requiem Mass held on 8 April 2005 was said to have set world records both for attendance and number of heads of state present at a funeral.

During his funeral, crowds chanted ‘Santo Subito’ meaning ‘Make him a Saint’. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI initiated the process of his canonization within one month by overriding the normal 5 year waiting period. Following the recognition of two miracles attributed to the intercession of Saint John Paul II, Pope Francis canonized Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII on 27 April 2014 which was the Feast of Divine Mercy too. His feast is celebrated on October 22.