The Human Person is Worthy of Love: John Paul II's Answer to the Culture of Death (published in...

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[Published in the journal Faith & Reason, Spring 2006]

The Human Person is Worthy of Love:

Pope John Paul II’s Answer

to the Culture of Death

JOHN JANARO

Last year, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II brought to

completion the tremendous witness of his life in his serene and

exemplary suffering and death on April 2, 2005. It seemed as if all

humanity watched his final days with awe and fascination. Not

only those who were devoted to him, but also those who did not

understand him could not help being struck by the power and

beauty of one who manifested so profoundly the face of Jesus

Christ—a power and beauty that were exceptionally radiant in the

utmost weakness of what the world calls “death.” John Paul II

died as he had lived—pouring himself out in love and solidarity

with the suffering of others, thereby proclaiming in his own body

that Jesus Christ has transformed death itself into the definitive

moment of total, self-giving love. Already the Christian people are

acclaiming him “John Paul the Great.” The election of his closest

collaborator, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict XVI and

the joyful first year of Benedict’s pontificate may well be the fruits

of John Paul II’s final sacrifice, and the continuing solicitude for

the pilgrim Church that he now carries out as a member of the

Church Triumphant. Indeed, Pope Benedict—by his immediate

opening of the formal process for the beatification and

canonization of his predecessor, as well as by many other

statements and gestures—has indicated that the teaching and

Janaro, John Paul II

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witness of John Paul II remain a fundamental reference point for

the Church in our time.

The third longest reigning Pope in history, John Paul II carried

out his mission as the Vicar of Christ throughout his long

pontificate with firm perseverance in the midst of many trials,

always remaining focused on deepening the renewal of the Church

and her mission throughout the world. He has left a vastindeed,

unprecedentedlegacy, from which the Christian people still have

a much to learn. Throughout his ministry as successor of St. Peter,

John Paul II was keenly aware that the “Petrine ministry” informed

not only his formal exercise of the papal magisterium, but also his

entire vocation as “universal bishop,” as Servus Servorum Dei

(“Servant of the Servants of God”). He saw his pontificate as

charged with responsibility for ecclesial unity within the Church

(among his brother bishops, and among local churches of widely

diverse peoples, customs, and historical traditions). He was also a

tireless protagonist for the unity of all Christians, and for mutual

understanding and respect between Christian people and followers

of other religions (even while clearly reaffirming that Jesus Christ

is the only means of salvation).

Perhaps more than anything else, Pope John Paul II lived

intensely the Petrine ministry as an Apostle. In both his extensive

teaching documents and his daily preaching, the Pope bore witness

to Jesus Christ, the good news of our salvation, and the mysteries

of the Faith. He also pondered the depths of God’s wisdom and

love, and taught us about the dignity of the human person, the

sanctity of human life, the value of human work, and the awesome

beauty of human love—particularly that unique, expressive gesture

of human love that God established by creating the human being as

“male” and “female.” With an energy that only grace can give,

John Paul II continually exhorted us, corrected us, challenged us to


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grow in faith, instructed us on how to pray, and invited us to pray

with him in the face of the violence of this world. And he

diagnosed the sickness of our times, setting before us healing

remedies that will not simply restore a previous state of health, but

will instill a new vitalitya renewed life for society and culture.

There are so many ways to consider the papacy of John Paul II,

but it is this last point that constitutes the theme of this essay. John

Paul II’s vivid analysis of what he called the culture of death, and

the Christian response to it which he proposed, deserve special

attention. The Pope has done much more than coin phrases in his

use of the terms “culture of life” and “culture of death.” Rather,

behind these terms lay his own tremendous effort to proclaim the

Gospel in a secularized world. His teaching and preaching sought

not only to identify the many errors of our time, so as to protect the

Christian people from them and from the false ideologies that give

rise to them. He sought also to set forth in its many facets the

splendor of the Truth revealed in Christ Jesus, so as to provide a

profound and ongoing catechesis and to give spiritual formation to

the people of God. John Paul II’s teachingalways rich in

meditation on the mystery of God and His love for us, and the

mystery of man created in the image of God and called to share in

His gloryforms the minds, hearts, consciences, and even the

sensibility of those who are attentive to it. Above all, John Paul II

was a spiritual father, a master in the ways of prayer, whose

teaching and preaching offer the Christian heart an introduction

into a contemplative wisdoma way of loving God in the midst of

the world, and of looking at all of reality in its truth, of seeing and

loving and suffering all things in the mystery of God’s love. This

contemplative prayer of love and sacrificefinding its source of

life always in the Church and nourished by the sacraments (above


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all by Jesus Himself in the Eucharist)is the heart of the new

evangelization that John Paul II called for, and that continues to be

the focus of his successor Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed,

evangelization is not only the mandate and the very inner dynamic

of the Gospel. It is also the only hope for man, and the impetus of

the “new evangelization” is the hope for man at the beginning of

the third millennium. It is the hope that glimmers on the horizon

of a day already full of anxiety, confusion, and violence.

The dramatic events that swept over Western civilization in the

twentieth century gave rise to a situation in which not only were

great evils perpetrated, but also the very substance of the good was

perverted in numerous societies in the developed world. This

phenomenon gave rise to what could rightly be called an “anti-

culture,” which did not simply ignore, but which militantly

attacked the very dignity of the human person, the sanctity of his

life, his intrinsic value founded upon his being created by God, and

the corresponding objectivity of the moral order as God’s design—

the expression of His wisdom and love—for the created person.

This militant “anti-personalism” was a secularism in the most

fundamentally negative sense of this term: it defined human

beings, individually and socially, as independent of God, both in

their origin and in their destiny. Human beings and human society

were measured entirely by the purposes of the world of space and

time. The most obvious example of this “secularist anti-culture”

was the brutal horror of the totalitarian Communist state. John Paul

II, the Polish Pope, lived an intense and personal relationship with

God in the midst of the ravages of Communism, and the openly

violent atheist and materialist dictatorships that tormented the

peoples of Eastern Europe for 50 years. It is not surprising,

therefore, that he was able to recognize the more subtle ideology of


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“practical atheism” that dominates with ever greater virulence what

was once called the “free world.”

In Western Europe and North America, the atheistic disease

mutated, although it began from the same virus: the exclusion of

transcendence from the life of the human person. Here, however,

the accent has been placed on moral autonomy and various

positions allied to it. Indeed, what John Paul II called the culture

of death has taken a distinctive form in the secularized “liberal”

West and its cultural expressions. These expressions while

seldom openly violent—are a seductive and ultimately suffocating

attack on the higher purposes of human existence.

Thus, John Paul II understood the “culture of death” not merely

as a particular, limited influence that perpetrates violence in

society. By using the term “culture,” he recognized that liberal

secularism has constructed a whole, pervasive social context

within which human persons are “formed” (in this case, mal-

formed). But the “culture of death” is not a true human culture;

rather it is an invasive force, a social cancer that attacks and

destroys the interiority of the person. As we have already noted,

this is one of the reasons why the reflection and spiritual richness

of John Paul II’s teaching and preaching are so important and so

necessary for our time. He sought, among other things, to build up

the interiority of the person and to set forth both the liberating truth

and the radiant beauty of the Gospel in contrast to the powerful

but shallow illusions of the culture of death. It is worthwhile to

examine this fundamental point, after which we will touch on some

of the key themes that John Paul II developed during his

pontificate, noting especially the way in which he presents these

themes: as counter-points to the deceptions of the culture of death,

that will strengthen the hearts of those who believe and offer

something “new” to those who are seeking the truth.


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The “liberal” Western world in the late twentieth century became

increasingly open and radical in its assertion of the moral

autonomy and self-sufficiency of the human person. Moreover, a

false image of man became more and more pervasive; it was as if it

were being imposed by a slow yet irresistible force. Indeed,

militant liberal Western secularism possessed weapons of subtle

yet extraordinary power: the arsenal of the various instruments of

the mass media, all of which are capable of penetrating the senses

and imaginations of people, surrounding them with impressions

that correspond to the liberal secularist ideology. This ideology, in

sum, entails [a] The marginalization (if not outright denial) of God;

[b] objective morality denied in favor of a pseudo-autonomous

self-determination, subjectivism, and relativism; and finally [c] the

purposes of human life conceived and aggressively presented in

radically egocentric terms, so that the ideal of personal fulfillment

is said to consist in the pursuit of merely human and indeed

animalistic satisfactions.

At present, the rapidly accelerating phenomenon of

globalization, along with the recent collapse of ideological

Communism, have opened the way for an ever increasing and

more powerful exportation of liberal secular culture through the

amazingly refined technology of the mass media, so that there are

few places in the world that are untouched by it at the beginning of

the third millennium.

In fact, of course, the secularist ideology is a lie in more ways

than the most obvious point of its denial of God and objective

moral law. By cutting the human person off from God and casting

him upon his own (usually meager) resources, the modern

consumerist Western world of freedom and autonomy actually

places a multitude of people in a condition of interior slavery to the


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powerful of this world. The “powerful,” here, are not always easy

to identify. They are the ones in positions that enable them to

shape the various mass media or other cultural influences, creating

the pervasive impression that it is necessary to possess certain

things and adopt certain attitudes in order to achieve human

fulfillment. And, of course, they are also those who can marshal

the political, social, or economic forces necessary to produce these

things and cultivate these attitudes in society.

The psychological slavery that results from these subtle forces

constantly working on the senses, imaginations, and opinions of

people is a tragic fact of our time. Usually without even realizing

it, many human persons in this culture allow a precious

realitytheir own self-image, their sense of self-worth, the inner

truth about who they areto be defined, imposed upon them, and

manipulated by forces that have sold out the dignity of the human

person for money, vanity, disoriented pleasure, power, or some

unearthly mayhem.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the degeneration of

sexual morality and of the whole ethos of the family that took

place over the course of the last century. We are told that human

sexuality has been “liberated”—but in fact this “liberation” has

been a raw repudiation of the heart and soul of human sexuality

(even if perhaps it was not fully understood or valued in the past).

The ideology of “sexual freedom” contradicts that which

constitutes the awesome dignity of conjugal love: the bodily

“ritual” in which a man and a woman enter into the mystery of

creation itself through the openness of their interpersonal union.

Sexual liberation promised to make us more aware of sexual love,

but in fact the sexual revolution has in the end robbed us of the

sense of mystery that ought to belong to this most intimate center

of our personality and its capacity to become a gift. Mystery and


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modesty—signs of reverence for the dignity of the human

person—have been replaced by a gigantic preoccupation with a

mere thing: sex. It has become a thing we practice, read about,

take supplements or prescription drugs to improve, and endlessly,

endlessly talk about. The culture tells us (incessantly) that it is a

terribly important thing for a satisfying life; yet it also insists that

“sex” is something that we “have,” and therefore (in spite of all the

talk about love), it is something that is ultimately external to the

person. Moreover, because it is a “thing” (a psychosomatic thing),

it should be considered a toola “technique”to be used to fulfill

our needs and desires. This means, of course, that it can, and

should, be manipulated and controlled so as to produce good

results and contribute to our satisfaction.

And what is the essential purpose of this thing we call “sex”?

According to the secularist ideology, its only real significance is to

produce an experience. We are enthralled by the intensity of this

experience, and the culture tells us that it is a wonderful thing to

share with someone else, someone we love, or like, or someone we

want to please or have fun with. Aside from its dazzling power, it

is essentially the same kind of experience as many other things that

two people might do together to please one another: thus it has

become normal for a “date” between two single adults to consist in

several mutually pleasing eventsa nice dinner, a film or a play,

coffee and discussion afterward, and then the bedroom. If things

go well enough, the following morning may include breakfast.

Thus we get a sense of the secularized West’s increasingly

dominant “ideal” of human sexuality. Many will protest with great

earnestness that modern sexual freedom allows people to express

esteem and appreciation for each other, through a natural and

joyful bodily expression. Indeed, we are told that the capacity to

enjoy the sexual experience, and to “perform” so as to produce it


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with maximum satisfaction for our sexual partner, is an essential

feature of human maturityof being a kind, loving, and wise

adult, a man or woman come to full stature.

As we have already noted, however, the culture of death’s

ideology of sexual licensein spite of the deceptive use of

“personal” and humanistic languagehas in fact degraded a

mystery of life-long, covenanted love expressed before God and

touching the fountains of creation itself, into a mere psycho-

sensual “thing-experience” that we “make,” “have,” and measure

or rate on a human scale, as we would a musical performance or a

sporting event. At best, it is an experience people share when they

are truly fond of one another. Yet even here, under its veneer of

tenderness, generosity, and affection, it is really selfish and

shallow. Self indulgent “sex” gnaws away at that original ecstasy

of human love, in which the lover is enraptured by an other person

whom he cannot reduce to any measure of his own, whom he can

only affirm in joy and wonder and reverence: “you are beautiful,

my love.” The culture of death demands the desecration of human

love by casual “sex,” and the most glorious of created joys is

stolen from the human heart and replaced withat bestmutual

(and often only temporary) emotional comfort.

This self-indulgence is something that we might be inclined to

view as merely pathetic, except for the fact that it plays with the

mystery of lovenot only human love, but also Divine love, for it

is through this mystery that God calls a new human person into

being. When we reflect on the awesome reality of spousal love

and procreation, it becomes tragically clear that all this human

posturing about “sexual liberation” is a sham. Nevertheless,

people in our time have sought to perpetuate the illusion of

“freedom” by using artificial devices that seek to separate sexual


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expression from God’s creative love. But the contraceptives fail,

and new human persons are created by God and loved by Him.

For the culture of the affluent, liberal West, this fact constituted a

decisive moment in history. Would there be love for these new,

poor, defenseless human persons in need, or would there be

marginalization, willful ignorance, or even destruction, bloodshed?

To save our “freedom,” to preserve our lifestyle, to protect our

choices, we began to shed innocent blood. Torrents of innocent

blood. With the abomination of “legal abortion”—the horror of

murder sanctioned by law and even celebrated as a “human

right”—liberal secularism entered a new, ugly, monstrous phase.

Indeed, as the vision of Western secular man has become

increasingly perverse, the means required to meet its satisfactions

have become increasingly violent: thus it is that life itself—that

fundamental, sacred gift of God our Creator; the mysterious,

unrepeatable image of God that is particular to each and every

human person He creates—has become a commodity; a reality no

longer sacred, an object that can be destroyed, or “produced” by

human engineering to satisfy human desires, and manipulated for

human whims.

The spiritual death entailed by liberal secular culture’s

separation of the human person from God is now “incarnate” in a

terrible mockery: that same culture justifies the shedding of

innocent human blood; that same culturewhich claims to exalt

the dignity of the human personinsists that some human persons

have the right to destroy other human persons; that same culture

provides vast sums of money, training, and propaganda in an effort

to impose the “right” to this deadly “choice” all over the world,

especially among the poor. Here the culture of death shows its

face most clearly.


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Indeed, the world is far too much dominated by the selfishness

of the culture of death, with its lust and its hunger for worldly

riches and worldly prestigeall promoted by the mass media’s

celebration of the false ideal that one’s identity consists in

“having” rather than “being.” Thus all kinds of political, social,

and economic violence accompany the production of things

demanded by so many inflamed human whims and urges. In such

a world, it is inevitable that innocent human life will be destroyed

when it interferes with our projects, that the defenseless will

become objects of “useful” experimentation, that there will be all

manner of injustice in human relationships, that the poor will be

oppressed and afflicted, and that much suffering will be inflicted

on the weak by greedy and rapacious men.

This is the “culture” that John Paul II so accurately and

succinctly termed the Culture of Death. Here in America itself, on

World Youth Day 1993 in Denver, Colorado, he spoke with great

fervor about the affliction of our time in what was to become a

central theme in the teaching of the second half of his pontificate.1

He identified the “culture of death,” as we have noted above, as

more than just a pervasive presence of evil, but a systematic

justification of evil, a ‘calling evil good’ and a proposal of evil as a

way of life. “A ‘culture of death,’” the Pope said in his homily that

morning at Cherry Creek State Park, “seeks to impose itself on our

desire to live and to live to the full. There are those who reject the

light of life, preferring the ‘fruitless works of darkness.’ Their

harvest is injustice, discrimination, exploitation, deceit, violence.”

After pointing out that every age suffers these evils, the Pope went

on to stress that “in our own century, as at no other time in history,

the ‘culture of death’ has assumed a social and institutional form

of legality to justify the most horrible crimes against humanity.”

The Pope then proceeded, on American soil, to link genocide and


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ethnic cleansing to abortion and euthanasia—as they are so linked

in the eyes of God.

John Paul II also noted that the culture of death is essentially

dependent on moral relativism. What is particularly interesting is

the term he used to refer to this relativism in his homily: he called

it “confusion.” Moreover, he identified one of the key

consequences of moral relativism (in contrast to its “empty

promises”). He stated, “Vast sectors of society are confused about

what is right and what is wrong”—this is, of course, an objective

description of the effect of the ideology of moral relativism being

imposed upon several generations of people as it has been in the

secularized West. What we have in our culture is not, in fact,

moral liberation. We do not have the freedom to choose for

ourselves what is right and what is wrong. Even if many people

claim that they possess this freedom, this is not in fact the case.

This could be perceived even on the sociological level today. One

can only speculate, but it is not unreasonable to surmise that a

genuine, unbiased sociological study of behavior patterns in

modern culture would reveal an overwhelming pattern of

conformity by multitudes of people. We do not really live in an

age that “celebrates diversity;” rather we live in a time where the

masses of people—on a scale unparalleled in human history—

appear to be more and more the same. In fact, the rule of our times

is a subtle but clearly recognizable homogenization; people are

shaping themselves according to the standards, styles, and opinions

set by cultural elites and the various groups that control the

powerful instruments that shape the face of modern secularism in

the popular imagination. Although there are accidental differences

among various groups, the core vision—the common profile of

“self-centeredness” and the corresponding commitment to the

culture of death and its propagation—is consistent. Thus,


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returning to the Pope’s words at World Youth Day, moral

relativism—moral confusion—in fact puts people “at the mercy of

those with the power to ‘create’ opinion and impose it on others.”

Moral relativism does not produce autonomous freethinking

individuals who “question authority.” Rather, it produces a slavish

conformity of the multitude of people, who gladly abandon their

reason for animalistic satisfaction and an ethos shaped by the

dominant mentality, an ethos that they can’t even begin to

question.

What can be done in the face of this oppressive slavery, with all

of its lies and diverse forms of violence? Only the appearance of

something new, striking, wonderful—something that surprises the

hearts of men and women and breaks through the categories of the

culture of death—can awaken once again that vital question that

turns man’s soul toward God. John Paul II’s response to the

culture of death is clear and direct: Evangelization. It is the

Gospel. The culture of life—we must remember—is the culture of

the resurrection.

Those of us who were present at World Youth Day in 1993 will

never forget the powerful, uncompromising, counter cultural

witness that John Paul II gave in those days: it seemed as if many

in America opened their arms and their agendas to welcome him

but also to manipulate him (often unconsciously and with all

sincerity, but simply limited in their vision). The Pope, however,

strode ten feet above everyone like a giant, preaching the Gospel,

correcting us forcefully but with a compelling beauty that struck us

with a vision we had never seen before, and above all loving us,

embracing us with his welcome—because wherever he went, he

radiated the mystery of the Church, he shone a light on the

presence of the Church in every place, and bore witness to Him

who is the Head of the Church. Indeed we might say that one of


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John Paul II’s most powerful contributions to the New

Evangelization and its corresponding culture of life was his own

monumental personal witness, spanning decades and continents

and stages of life, from youthful vitality to the blood he shed for

the faith in St. Peter’s square to the years of tireless preaching and

teaching in Rome and all over the world, to his elder years, his

struggles with illness, his tenacity, his courage in letting the world

see his human frailty, and—finally—the simplicity and trust with

which he surrendered himself to God in death. John Paul II

showed us what it means to be man. He showed this, above all, by

being a man of prayer, a humble man, a man who loved Jesus

Christ, a man who drew all his strength from Jesus Christ, whose

entire existence spoke the name of Jesus—consequently a man

who gave and gave, who loved with a humanity and a tenderness

and a vast paternal concern, day after day, in a way that no human

power can possibly explain. Such was the witness of “John Paul

the Great”—a witness to the Divine and human greatness of Jesus

Christ.

John Paul II knew the power of the Gospel, and that the culture

of life is in its fullest sense the flourishing of the evangelium vitae,

the Gospel of life, to cite the title of his great encyclical. Although

it is certainly true and vitally important to stress that fundamental

moral truths regarding the dignity of the human person and the

sanctity of human life can be known by human reason even

without the light of faith, nevertheless the pontificate of John Paul

II was driven since its inception by an urgent desire that each and

every person come to know and love Jesus Christ and possess the

fullness of the truth for which the human person was made. Thus

it is not surprising that at World Youth Day in Denver, John Paul II

framed his description of the culture of death in evangelical

terms—indeed, the culture of death is not fully understood unless it


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is seen to be an attack on God’s design for the supernatural destiny

of man. Thus the culture of death imposes itself upon the desire

“to live and to live to the full” (see John 10:10, where Jesus

describes the life He has come to bring, which is not just any kind

of life, but “eternal life”). The perpetrators of the culture of death

“reject the light of life” and “prefer the darkness” which is not

simply the physical darkness brought about by the death of the

body, but that ultimate darkness: the unfathomably dark “death” in

which man alienates himself from God (see John 1:4-5; 3:19-20).

Throughout his pontificate, John Paul followed the lead of the

Second Vatican Council on a particular point that must be both

preached and manifested in a living Christian witness.

Contemporary man eventually must face at some level of

experience the alienation and the broken promises of the culture of

death, which in the end cause nothing but blindness and pain. It is

even true for persons of particular integrity and dedication to truth,

who appreciate the more hopeful elements of scientific and

technical progress, which have brought undeniable blessings to

human existence in this world. There are many dedicated and

perceptive people in our time who are trying to improve human

life, but who also perceive (often mournfully) that these

“improvements” in themselves lack a clear orientation to man’s

ultimate purpose. This is the great weakness of secularist culture:

it cannot satisfy the human heart. The human heart is made for

God. And God has revealed Himself and given Himself to man in

Jesus Christ. Thus John Paul II repeated again and again the text

from Gaudium et Spes 22: “It is only in the mystery of the Word

made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.”

In a reflection during the Jubilee year, John Paul II frankly

admitted that “these words are especially dear to me and I wanted

to propose them again in the fundamental passages of my


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Magisterium.” Jesus Christ, God made man, fulfills the

restlessness of the human heart and its search for meaning even as

He elevates man to the unimaginable dignity of a participation in

the divine life. Thus the Gospel is not only the revelation of the

mystery of God (it is, of course, fundamentally and primarily this).

The Gospel is also the revelation of the truth about man. Thus the

Church preaches a message that “is a fruitful synthesis of the

human being’s expectation and of God’s response to him.”2

Beginning with his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis, John

Paul II preached Jesus Christ to all the world with a particular

fervor owing to his conviction of the human person’s need for

Christ—indeed the “right” of each and every human person to

know the full truth about Jesus Christ, who is the reason why they

were created and who loves them. He spoke of the importance of

“the great mission of revealing Christ to the world, helping each

person to find himself in Christ . . . helping everyone to get to

know ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ (Eph. 3:8) since these

riches are for every individual and are everybody’s property.”3

A culture of life that “lives to the full” begins with the preaching

of the Gospel. It is enriched and solidified by catechesis,

reflection, and the cultivation of a more profound awareness of

Christian realities. For Christians living in the midst of the culture

of death, this deepening of awareness involves a more concrete

sense of the human dimension of God’s redeeming love. John Paul

II, in presenting Christian doctrine and morals in light of the whole

truth about manthe “mystery of man”desired to bear witness

to the whole world that Jesus Christ is the only answer to the

search for meaning and the yearning for love that God has

fashioned in the depths of every human heart. Only Jesus can

answer the question, “Who am I?” Moreover, John Paul II desired

to form the Christian people more profoundly in an awareness of


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this truth, so that the glory of Christ would be more concretely

perceived in faith and love as the real, superabundant,

unimaginable answer to every human misery, every human cry of

anguish, every authentic human desire for something more than the

limits of this world can give. In sum, we must become more

deeply aware in faith and love of this reality: that the glory of

Christ is the answer to the mystery of the human heart—my own

heart, and the heart of every person I meet. John Paul II wanted to

teach us how to pray, how to contemplate, how to draw strength

from the Eucharist and the sacraments, andeach according to his

own vocationhow to go forth into the world with a faith that

lives on the concrete, day to day level with conviction that Jesus

Christ really is the meaning of the universe, the meaning of

history, the meaning of today, this day. To seek, to live, to bear

witness to this Truth: these are the most essential things we can do

to “build” a “culture of life,” because He is “the Life” (John 14:6).

It is impossible to summarize in this short space even the key

teachings that comprise the great Christian vision of John Paul II.

Therefore we will look at a few important texts by way of

introduction. Among the many important documents from the

early phase of John Paul II’s pontificate, three encyclicals stand

out with a particular prominence. The “Trinitarian encyclicals”—

Redemptor Hominis (Jesus Christ the Son of God); Dives in

Misericordia (Mercy, focused on the Father); and Dominum et

Vivificantem (the Holy Spirit)—are among the most unique

documents in the whole history of the papacy. Their purpose is not

to make authoritative pronouncements on specific doctrinal points,

nor to correct particular errors. Rather, they are rich doctrinal

meditations. They are not easy to understand, and people are often

dissuaded from reading them because of their dense and

demanding style. Yet they are fundamentally important to the


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papacy of John Paul II. In these texts, he invites us to “reflect” on

a “mystery” by presenting “considerations”drawn from the light

of revealed truththat he hopes will “bring this mystery closer to

everyone.”4 He offers extensive reflections whose “main purpose

is to develop in the Church [an] awareness”5a deeper

penetration into the mystery of the Trinity revealed by Christ, and

a deeper sense of the Church’s identity and mission in light of the

profound developments of the Second Vatican Council: “the many-

faceted enrichment of the Church’s consciousness resulting from

the Council….”6

It would be a mistake to conclude from the approach that John

Paul II uses here that he was writing merely personal reflections,

and did not intend to act as the Vicar of Christ when he wrote and

published these texts. Rather, in these encyclicals, he exercises in

a powerful way his office as universal shepherd of souls; he fulfills

Christ’s mandate, “feed my sheep.” Their doctrinal teaching,

while not new, is profound; it proposes afresh and shows

forthoften in beautiful and striking waysthe unity and

interrelatedness of the whole patrimony of the Faith. But the

Trinitarian encyclicals are particularly focused on what we referred

to above as catechesis and spiritual formation. What John Paul II

set out to do in these early encyclicals, and what he continued to do

in many texts and homilies throughout the whole of his pontificate,

was to preach the fundamental mysteries of Christianity—centered

around the Mystery of the Triune God—in a way that would form,

deepen, and strengthen the faith of believers. His method of

teaching invites the faithful to a workan attentiveness in which

they will deepen their appreciation of the mysteries and recognize

their interrelatedness. Those who study the encyclicals will be led

to a more profound interiorization of their faith and a deeper spirit


19

of prayer (especially mental prayer and prayerful reading). This

was perhaps John Paul II’s greatest hope in presenting these

masterful texts, and it shows the importance of the “mystical

quality” of so much of his papal teaching. The Trinitarian

encyclicals were in fact the fruits of John Paul II’s own rich prayer

life, the sharing of his own contemplative wisdom in the form of

preachinga preaching he carried out as Bishop of Rome and

successor of St. Peter, thus offering nourishment to the whole of

Christ’s flock. This work is one of his great contributions to the

history of Christianity and its theological tradition: the patrimony

of reflective teaching that forms the contemplative core of his

whole pontificate. At the center of his whole magisterium was this

magnificent work of preaching, faith, and adoration of the mystery

of the Trinity. In addition to the rich pedagogical value of its

content, the structure of John Paul II’s teaching stands as a model

for the life of the Christian person.

It would be unfortunate if one were to ignore the contemplative

center of John Paul’s II’s teaching, and concentrate exclusively on

certain later encyclicals and documents in which he, it is

sometimes said, deals more “concretely” with “issues,” resolving

or clarifying particular points of faith and morals (e.g. the

landmark encyclicals Veritatis Splendor [1993], dealing with the

proper principles of moral reasoning; Evangelium Vitae [1995],

which condemns anew offenses against the sanctity of human life;

or Fides et Ratio [1998], in which John Paul II re-proposes with

brilliance and lucidity the proper relationship between faith and

reason). It should be noted, among other things, that the crucially

important instruction and corrections given in these documents and

others were received with a ready assent by so many of the faithful

precisely because these faithful came to adulthood during the first

generation of John Paul II’s pontificate. This was the generation


20

whose ecclesial sense had been nourished by the wisdom, the

reflection, the deepening of awareness, that John Paul II had made

available to them during their seminary years, novitiate, or the

years in which their faith matured as lay people committed to

serving Christ in the married or consecrated states. Above all,

however, it must be stressed that these more recent encyclicals

themselves cannot be fully understood unless one keeps in mind

the contemplative and meditative aspects of John Paul II’s

magisterium. Rarely can a teaching document of his be summed

up in a simple series of propositions. There are always aspects of

preaching, dwelling on the mystery, and glorifying God. Thus, for

example, the entire second chapter of Evangelium Vitae is devoted

to a meditation on “the Christian Message Concerning Life,” that

culminates at the Cross: “this glorious tree . . . is revealed as the

center, meaning and goal of all history and of every human life.”7

The Cross is not shame for Jesus; rather “on the Cross his glory is

made manifest”8 because he gives his life out of love for the Father

and for us; thus Jesus “attains on the Cross the heights of love.”9

Here too, “Jesus proclaims that life finds its center, its meaning

and its fulfillment when it is given up.”10 Reflections such as these

must not be passed over as we seek to understand John Paul II’s

reaffirmation of the Church’s teaching on abortion, euthanasia, and

other violations of the sanctity of human life. In these reflections

we find the radical foundation for what the Church teaches, and the

concrete source of strength to walk in that teaching. I must go to

the Cross to find the “center, meaning and goal” of every human

life, of my life, and of that (perhaps difficult) life that

circumstances may require me to respect and revere in a particular

situation.

As we noted above, one crucial reason why John Paul II

proposed for us such reflections is that we need nourishment in


21

light of the pervasive influence of the culture of death. He knew

that the culture of death makes use of powerful forces of attraction

to confuse and trick the human person, making evil appear good in

a way that is very difficult to resist. In particular, Christ’s

teachings regarding the moral life are very difficult to follow in the

grip of an environment that systematically attacks the moral ideal

and wages war against it by means of a kaleidoscope of sensations

and suggestions that cannot all be avoided voluntarily.

Faced with this attack, it becomes essential to develop an

interior lifeand here we refer specifically to strong and well

nourished inner virtues of faith, hope, and charity that become

principles for perceiving and judging reality according to the mind

of Christ, which is to say according to the way things really are,

rather than according to the systematic illusion bought and sold in

the secular marketplace. This requires of course a solid catechesis

in Catholic doctrine, but it also involves a formation of the whole

realm of human perception. As John Paul II himself indicated, in

the moral realm, the splendor of the truth is crucial to the

development of virtue. Not even original sin has effaced that

precious light and the powerweakened but not lostthat

enlightens the heart of man: “How do I distinguish good from evil?

The answer is only possible thanks to the splendor of the truth

which shines forth deep within the human spirit.”11 The culture of

death has done much to lead the heart astray with false lights while

obscuring the truth, even as that culture remains bound by the

terms of the human conscience: justice, right, freedom, good,

happiness, love, honesty, giving. It is all the more important,

therefore, that the Church allow God’s revelation to manifest itself:

“The light of God’s face shines in all its beauty on the countenance

of Jesus Christ, ‘the image of the invisible God’ [Col. 1:15], the

‘reflection of God’s glory’ [Heb. 1:3], ‘full of grace and truth’ [Jn.


22

1:14].”12 The Church, moreover, must be faithful to her mission to

preach Christ’s truth and to manifest His glory: “Jesus Christ, the

‘light of the nations,’ shines upon the face of his Church, which he

sends forth to the whole world to proclaim the Gospel to every

creature.”13

In a paradoxical way the culture of death has awakened

Christians to an important truth: in order to follow Christ, it is not

enough to have a merely exterior understanding of “do this, don’t

do that....” I need the grace of the Holy Spirit, the life of God

within me, the power that comes from the infused virtues of faith,

hope and love and the gifts of the Spirit. It is all too easy to forget

that our vocation is not just to be “good people”; we are called to

be adopted sons of the Father in Jesus Christthrough Baptism,

we have been incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ and

made co-heirs with Him to the Kingdom of God. We have been

given the capacity to live a “supernatural” life of friendship with

God, a “participation” in the life of God. The Fathers of the

Church did not hesitate to call this life of grace “deification” (see

the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1997-1999). If we

persevere, we will inherit eternal glory. John Paul II did not

neglect to remind Christians of the dignity of their calling, as well

as the riches of grace and mercy that accompany and make

possible the arduous journey of the Christian life.

Indeed, Christianity might not seem like such “good news” if it

were nothing more than what the news reports from the culture of

death present it to be: a series of cold, inflexible moral demands,

often aimedso it seemsat the uncompromising suppression of

forceful impulses over which we feel we have little or no control.

The culture of death would have us think that Christianity is

nothing but self-condemnation. People instinctively defend

themselves against this: “I have always felt this way . . . I didn’t


23

choose it. And the Church says I am evil, a bad person!” So it

goes. People hear only that they must go to the top of a huge

mountain. What they don’t hear is that they are going to be given

wings and taught to fly. It is not John Paul II, however, who is

hiding this truth from them. When Veritatis Splendor was

promulgated, people wrangled about exceptionless moral norms

and Vatican inflexibility, but one thing that especially needed to be

heard (but wasn’t) was John Paul II’s teaching about mercy and the

grace of the Holy Spirit. Calling upon Mary (as he did at the

conclusion of every teaching document), under her title as “Mother

of Mercy,” he pointed out with great simplicity that all the

strenuous intellectual efforts to evade the reality of sin by the

labyrinthine reasonings of moral revisionism are the unnecessary

labors of one who is weary and burdened. Sin is not the last word

in the history of the universe. God has revealed and communicated

His mercy to the world. “No human sin can erase the mercy of

God, or prevent him from unleashing all his triumphant power, if

we only call upon him”14 (118:2). This mercy is the heart of God’s

redeeming love, and it “reaches its fullness in the gift of the

Spirit”God’s people have been saved by His mercy, and are now

sustained and empowered in their journey toward Him by His

mercy, because without Him we can do nothing. Yet “no matter

how many and great the obstacles put in his way by human frailty

and sin, the Spirit, who renews the face of the earth (cf. Ps.

104:30), makes possible the miracle of the perfect accomplishment

of the good. This renewal, which gives the ability to do what is

good, noble, beautiful, pleasing to God and in conformity with his

will, is in some way the flowering of the gift of mercy, which

offers liberation from the slavery of evil and gives the strength to

sin no more. Through the gift of new life, Jesus makes us sharers

in his love and leads us to the Father in the Spirit.”15


24

John Paul II expresses the same basic truth in the context of the

Christian person’s relationship with Jesus Christ in the next

paragraph, and here he responds specifically to those who say that

Christian morality is too difficult. Man has often raised this charge

against Christianity, particularly the man of today’s secular culture.

Some Christians, in repudiating this charge, might be tempted to

do nothing more than turn and accuse secular man of being

morally depraved (the danger here being the perennial “temptation

of the Pharisee”—to assert one’s own moral superiority based on

pride). We would do well to take St. Paul’s advice that anyone

who thinks he stands should take heed lest he fall. John Paul II

rejects the charge raised by the culture of death (that Christian

morality is too difficult), but he does so for a more beautiful and

more secure reason: “This is untrue [that Christian morality is too

demanding and impossible to practice], since Christian morality

consists, in the simplicity of the Gospel, in following Jesus Christ,

in abandoning oneself to him, in letting oneself be transformed by

his grace and renewed by his mercy, gifts which come to us in the

living communion of his Church.”16 He is not being simplistic

here; he knows well that life involves complex situations and

requires moral reasoning. What he is expressing here is simply the

heart of the matter. He has faith. He believes in the Gospel.

“Abide in me and you will bear fruit,” Jesus says. The heart of the

matter is simple, even if it unfolds within the complexity of the

circumstances of life. Indeed, John Paul II insists that

abandonment to Christ is the opposite of running away from

reality; adherence to Him will “lead to a more genuine

understanding of reality, inasmuch as following Christ will

gradually bring out the distinctive character of authentic Christian

morality, while providing the vital energy needed to carry it out.”17


25

Here we see John Paul II teaching one of the most important

themes that we need to reflect upon in any age: the mystery of

grace. And, as we noted earlier, it is particularly important for us

to take time to dwell upon the radiance, the glory that is the proper

characteristic of the truth, which John Paul II labored to present for

us in his ministry of preaching and teaching as successor of St.

Peter. It is not easy to receive the grace of God that transforms our

minds and hearts, and opens them to the glory of God shining on

the face of Christ. Thus it is not surprising that it is sometimes

difficult to appreciate the real depth of John Paul II’s teaching.

Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit—in giving us the gift of this

extraordinary Pope—has clearly called us to do a corresponding

work, for the sake of strengthening our faith and love.18

Indeed, John Paul II has given Christians (and anyone seeking

the truth about human love) an especially important body of

teaching that challenges the culture of death at its very heart. His

teaching on the mystery of man and woman and the dignity of

spousal love has presented chastity as a concrete ideal for the

coming generation, and as a great and authentic liberating force in

the lives of so many who had been slaves to the ideology of sexual

license, who had been tricked by its lies, suffered its degradation,

and been oppressed by its secret, vicious cruelty. John Paul II’s

“Theology of the Body” has truly presented a challenge to the

dominant images of sexuality marketed by the culture of death. He

has thus succeeded in presenting an alternative image of spousal

love. The Pope lacked the powerful instruments of the mass

media; what he had, however, was reality, and also something that

no amount of sensual trickery can ever conjure: the noble vision of

genuine human beauty. Not only did John Paul II contribute to the

development of doctrine in the area of sexual morality and

conjugal love; he re-proposed the Church’s teaching—Christ’s


26

teaching—as if drawn anew from the spring of living waters, fresh,

awash with beauty, full of the invitation to a true freedom. It is

surprising, new, full of nobility, worthy, arduous, but young hearts

are prepared to sacrifice for it. And for those no longer young it

bears the promise of a deep and personal healing, and the

rediscovery of a purity of heart that many thought they had lost

forever.

John Paul II’s profound teaching on the mystery of man and

woman has had a lasting impact throughout the Church. The Lord

used him to generate a new mentality regarding how this mystery

is perceived and understood. Terminology that was previously

used only by a few philosophers is now found in marriage prep

programs, adult education programs, and catechisms all over the

world. Sometimes, the “Theology of the Body” is not very well

understood; in particular, there is the problem of people stressing

only the beautiful phrases about sexuality and self-giving love

without giving enough attention to the Pope’s realism about the

Fall of man, and the difficulties of living the ideal of spousal love

even for Christians, who must pray, cooperate with the healing

grace of Christ, and work at it.

Having said this, we need to appreciate as best we can in this

brief space the magnificent contribution John Paul II has made in

his teaching on marriage. On the one hand, of course, he has really

said nothing new at all. It is simply the teaching of the Gospel.

Indeed, as John Paul II presents it, it is the teaching of the first

chapters of Genesis. It is also the teaching of the Church, although

up until now it had been largely implicit. The sacrament of

Matrimony certainly suggests everything by its very nature. It is

the underlying truth of the central points (as opposed to incidental

matters) taught by the great patristic and medieval doctors

(Augustine, John Chrysostom, Aquinas). And it was emerging


27

gradually but unmistakably in the magisterium of the papacy in the

twentieth century. But it was John Paul II who put together all the

pieces into a grand picture. What was on the picture?

First let us try to put it simply: John Paul II declared once and

for all that being a man or being a woman was intrinsic to being a

human person. This means that “gender” is a way of loving, of

giving one’s self as a person and receiving another person lovingly

as a gifta woman to a man, a man to a woman. Moreover, in

this unique mystery of mutual self-giving love by which a man and

a woman become “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), their love opens

itself up to the Mystery of God Himself, for man and woman are

gifts to each other not only by virtue of their own self-donation,

but also and more fundamentally by virtue of God, who created the

man and the woman for each other and gave them to each other “in

the beginning,” and who creates and sustains the being of every

man and woman. As gifts from God to each other, a husband and

wife freely give themselves to each other and to God in love. And

God also loves. Should He so choose in the unbounded

sovereignty of a new act of His creative love, He will entrust a

child to the woman and the man, but always He bestows in return

His creative and sustaining embrace to the man and the woman,

His love that gives them existence and allows them to experience

love and joy.

Clearly, even a brief summary of these points requires a more

expanded development. God created the human being as a bodily

person, with masculinity and femininity being two complimentary

expressions of human personhood. In the original plan of God, the

man and the woman were created for the sake of mutual self-

giving love; their bodies were “signs,” transparent to the intimate,

“secret” core of their personal identities, which were to be given

and receivedthrough the bodily and interpersonal conjugal


28

union. In this union, the man and the woman were each total gift

one to the other, and were each totally receptive one to the other.

The conjugal act was designed to signify and communicate this

mutual love in its masculine and feminine modes, andof

courseit was above all designed in such a way that this very act

of self-giving love by the two human persons, male and female,

would be a mutual gift to God the Creator in which their bodily

persons would place themselveswithin the very ecstasy of their

loveat the disposition of God’s creative freedom in bringing a

new human person into the world.19 The Fall of the human race,

however, introduced opacity and disorder into the relationship

between man and woman, and lust and shame clouded their

conjugal relationship so that man and woman are constantly

tempted to view each other as objects to use for self-satisfaction

rather than persons to be loved in gift and appreciative receptivity.

It has become more difficult too for the man and the woman to

view their self-giving love within the context of the mystery of

creation, i.e. as an act of adoration and receptivity before God’s

creative design, which they are called to serve by their love. Sin,

indeed, has led to many perversions in human sexuality, leading it

far away from its great and sacred purpose.

Much of the original dignity of the mystery of the body,

however, is accessible to us in Christ, though it is not an easy ideal.

It calls for a great work of cooperation with the grace of the

redemption and the healing power of the Holy Spirit, the

cultivation of the virtues of chastity and modesty, and the living

out of a vocational commitment of self-giving love. In marriage,

the conjugal life is consecrated by a sacrament and becomes a sign

of the mystery of the love between Christ and the Church.

Christian spouses are sanctified by their mutual love and by family

life (about which John Paul II has also taught us much, to the great


29

enrichment of the ideal of the Christian family). The higher way

of consecrated life is the royal road; celibates and virgins

participate here and now, by their very form of life, in the mystery

of the resurrection. They have freely taken their bodily capacity to

give themselves to another human person and have abandoned it to

Christ. In handing it over to Him, they become “His” in a wholly

unique sense, and He accomplishes great things through them as

long as they “remain in Him.”

These few words on John Paul II’s teaching regarding the

mystery of man and woman, spousal love, and chastity barely

scratch the surface of an extensive body of reflections that include

not only the Wednesday “Catecheses” (i.e. the weekly General

Audiences, from September 5, 1979 to November 28, 1984)20 but

also the great Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (1981).21

Especially with this body of teaching, the “work” of which we

spoke earlier is crucial. Only a profound and personal appreciation

and interiorization of these truths—one that penetrates the whole

of our personality—will enable us to be truly free in the face of the

lies that the culture of death daily broadcasts about human

sexuality; and only with such freedom will we be able to bear

witness to the evangelical truth and beauty of chastity.

We have covered much ground in these pages, and we have

glimpsed some of the ways in which John Paul II, like a white

knight armed only with his long silver cross, has done battle with

the culture of death. Now the knight has passed on to his eternal

reward, yet his heart and mind and words remain to help us in our

daily struggle to live and bear witness to a Christian and human

life. We cannot fail to speak of this knight without mentioning the

Lady whom he loved and honored with every breath of his life.

The Mother of God was much more that a motif for concluding

Papal encyclicals. Her maternal presence was the secret strength


30

that gave such intensity to John Paul II’s gaze and such

attentiveness and tenderness to his love. Near the close of his

pontificate, John Paul II gave us a teaching about Mary that we

have only begun to understand in its full significance. His

apostolic letter on the Rosary needs to be read and pondered and

put into practice. He has done much more here besides instituting

the “luminous mysteries.” He has given us a catechesis of prayer,

a method of entering more deeply into the Rosary, of living the

Rosary as a personal reality, an encounter with Mary and Jesus, a

dwelling with the Lord in the Heart of Mary, a vital formation in

the mysteries of Jesus given from the heart of His Mother.

Here John Paul II shared with us his own experience, what he

himself learned in the “school of Mary.” It is Mary, undoubtedly,

who enabled him to perceive so astutely the truth about the human

person, and especially the mystery of the womanwhat John Paul

II called the “genius” of the feminine. Perhaps more than anything

else, it is Mary who was the source and inspiration for a teaching

that John Paul II often repeated, a teaching that can be expressed

very simply, but which is a great mysterya mystery that Mary

understands in a unique way and opens up to those who desire to

learn from her. It is, ultimately, the most important teaching of

John Paul II’s entire pontificate, and the most profound refutation

of all the denials and presumptions and secret misery of the culture

of death.

It can be expressed in a few simple words: Each and every

human person is loved by God. “Yes, yes, of course,” we say. But

in the school of Mary’s heart, in the school of Mary’s maternal

tenderness, John Paul II entered into the deep mystery of the real

concreteness of this love.

Each human person is loved by God. In his first encyclical,

John Paul II emphasized that it is precisely Mary’s maternal


31

mediation that brings the grace of Redemption close to the life of

each person: “The special characteristic of the motherly love that

the Mother of God inserts in the mystery of the Redemption and

the life of the Church finds expression in its exceptional closeness

to man and all that happens to him. It is in this that the mystery of

the Mother consists.” Mary is the Mother of each and every

human person, and is concretely concerned with everything that

happens to each and every human person. This “unique profundity

and range of action” possessed by the Mother of God in glory is, of

course, part of the mystery of her role as Mediatrix. God’s love in

Christ “comes close to each of us through this Mother.”22 Already

in Redemptor Hominis, it is clear that John Paul II also understood

that the Church is calledthrough union with Maryto follow her

on this path of love: “The Church, which looks to [Mary] with

altogether special love and hope, wishes to make this mystery her

own in an ever deeper manner. For in this the Church also

recognizes the way for her daily life, which is each person.”23

Further on he states that through Mary’s maternal presence, the

Church “acquires the certainty and, one could say, the experience

of being close to man, to each person.”24

Clearly the Church does not possess Mary’s personal capacity to

love directly every single person consciously and interiorly, in

every moment of his or her life (this, as we noted above, is the

unique and wonderful intimate power of Mary’s maternal Heart,

which corresponds to her unique mission as Mediatrix of all

graces). Nevertheless, entrusting herself to this exalted Mother

and attending to her example, the Pilgrim Church seeks to embrace

each person by means of the evangelical mission entrusted to the

Church and the vast resourcesspiritual and temporalgiven to

her by Jesus and sustained by the Holy Spirit. Thus the Church

carries out her mission of love through the communion of the


32

faithful (sign and instrument of God’s love for the whole human

race), through the missionary impetus to bring Christ’s love to all

the world, through the sacraments and above all the offering of the

Eucharist, through prayer and solidarity, through the openness of

an inclusive love which continually seeks out those who are lost,

andof coursethrough the practice of the works of mercy. It

should be noted, moreover, that in the mystical life of the Church,

any act, no matter how humble or hidden, canby being joined to

Christ as an offering of loveopen up to embrace the entire world,

mysteriously touching and changing the lives of persons known

only to the Providence of God. Thus the simplicity of obedience,

prayer, and sacrifice are the great hidden resources of love in the

Church.

Because the Church is Christ’s Mystical Body, her capacity to

love cannot be measured in sociological terms. Love of neighbor,

therefore, must never be reduced to activism. Nevertheless, it is a

commandment that is fundamental for the life of every believer,

which means that it is a principle of actionindeed a reflection of

the mystery of God Himself. The Blessed Virgin shows us how

profoundly rooted this truth is in the heart of the Church. There is

a striking point in the last citation above from Redemptor Hominis,

where John Paul II refers to the fact that, through Mary, the Church

acquires a kind of experience of closeness to the human person, to

“each” person, an experience of that particular love, solidarity, and

tenderness that Mary presents to the Church as the ideal, the way to

follow, the manner in which a truly ecclesial heart ought to

perceive the world.

It is, therefore, the vocation of each one of us to enter into this

profound mystery of love. And this is exactly what John Paul II

asked us to pray for in his general prayer intention for June of

2004. Once again, it was a matter of a deeper understanding, a


33

more profound awareness. The Prayer Intention was as follows:

That all Christians may be constantly more aware of their personal

and community responsibility to bear witness to God’s love for

humanity and for every man and woman.

Let us follow John Paul II in this response to the culture of

death. At first glance, it seems to take our breath away. There are,

after all, six billion people in the world. How can I have a

“responsibility” to bear witness to God’s love for all of them?

How can I love them all? They are a vast multitude. But we must

look carefully at the focus of the prayer intention. What are we

supposed to pray for? To become more aware. . . . Love begins

with understanding. This mysterious Love that God has for

personsthe Love that He wants us to share with Himis not

bounded by the limitations of this world, or our own limitations. It

begins with God’s grace and our interior openness and trust, and

grows when we abandon ourselves to Himwhen we are drawn

by the supernatural beauty of God’s great wisdom, when the

clouds of our narrowness begin to part and reality unfolds before

us and we begin to see things with spiritual sight, which means that

we see things as they actually are, the real world, created and

sustained by God, redeemed by Jesus, loved by Mary. It is the

world of this person and this person and this person; it is the world

of the next person who comes up to you. This is the world where

love begins to be possible.

And what happens to the culture of death in front of gratuitous

love? It is powerless. Because Love forgave its killers and rose

from the dead. A year after his blood poured out scarlet on his

white robe and on the stones of St. Peter’s square, the Pope of love

walked into the prison cell of the man who tried to execute him

and embraced him in his large arms and loved him. The culture of

death has no categories to explain such love. And yet the world


34

stood in awe. Why? Because the culture of death is a lie. And

deep down, the human personas long as he is still alivehas

something in him that knows it is a lie, or that at least can be

roused (by grace) from a deep slumber to the recognition that it is a

lie. Love gives witness to the truth, and thereby exposes the lie.

Love opens up the tomb. It raises the dead. “Love never ends” (1

Cor. 13:8). Love is the heart of the new life that God offers us

through His Son Jesus in the Holy Spirit. It is also the hope, the

only hope, of the society in which we live.

Pope John Paul II has taught us this, and much more.


35

Notes

1 The observations and impressions about World Youth Day 1993 that

appear in this text are the author’s own. The quotations from the Pope’s

homily at Cherry Creek State Park are cited from Tad Szulc, Pope John

Paul II: The Biography (New York: Scribner, 1995), 422.

2 Address to the Conference Studying the Implementation of the Second

Vatican Council, Sunday, 27 February 2000. Section 8.

3 Encyclical Redemptor Hominis (March 4, 1979), 11:5. Citations from

ecclesiastical documents are given according to the standardized section

numbers that are consistent in all editions and translations. Whenever

useful (e.g. in the case of a lengthy document), the section number will

be followed by a colon, after which we will cite the paragraph number

(within the section) from which the citation has been taken. Thus, this

quotation appears in section 11 of Redemptor Hominis, in the fifth

paragraph. 4 Encyclical Dives in Misericordia (November 30, 1980), 1:3, 2:6–8. 5 Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem (May 18, 1986), 2:6. Emphasis

mine.

6 Dives in Misericordia, 1:4.

7 Encyclical Evangelium Vitae (March 25, 1995), 50:2.

8 Evangelium Vitae, 50:3.

9 Ibid., 51:5.


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10 Ibid., 51:6.

11 Encyclical Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993), 2:1.

12 Ibid., 2:2.

13 Ibid., 2:4.

14 Ibid., 118:2.

15 Ibid., 118:2, emphasis mine.

16 Ibid., 119.

17 Ibid., 119, emphasis mine.

18 The present Holy Father, Benedict XVI, often speaks of the profound

impact of John Paul II and its continuing relevance. In fact, the beauty of

Christ and the joy of the Christian life have been key themes in the

teaching of Pope Benedict. He has also emphasized the spiritual

enrichment that comes from dwelling on the Christian mystery.

19 Indeed, the Pope even talks about the conjugal act being, according to

the original plan of God prior to the Fall, the “primordial

sacrament”the instrument through which God’s grace would have been

transmitted from generation to generation. Because of the Fall, what the

conjugal act should have transmitted is absent. As a result, whenever a

new human person is conceived, he receives a human nature from his

parents that lacks something that it ought to have had according to the

original design of God. Thus “original sin” is passed on by generation.

The redemption restores the sacramental character of marriage, now

however according to a different orderthe order of love that has its


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definitive form in the cross and resurrection. Grace is therefore

communicated not through conjugal love, but by Baptism into the death

and resurrection of Christ. See the General Audiences of October 6, 13,

and 20, 1982.

20 An English translation of the entire catechesis on the Theology of the

Body (as originally delivered in public addresses from 1979 to 1984 and

printed in the Vatican periodical L’Osservatore Romano accompanied by

the Pope’s own footnotes) has been published in a single volume by the

Daughters of St. Paul: The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the

Divine Plan (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1997). This volume

also includes the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (“On the Dignity

and Vocation of Women,” August 15, 1988) and the Encyclical

Evangelium Vitae (1995). 21 This document was written at the conclusion of the 1980 world synod

of bishops, who met with the Pope to consider “The Role of the Christian

Family.”

22 Redemptor Hominis, 22:4-5, emphasis mine.

23 Redemptor Hominis, 22:4, emphasis mine.

24 Redemptor Hominis, 22:5, emphasis mine.

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