In God’s Hands: The Spiritual Diaries of Pope St John Paul II

Introductory meditation: Sixteenth anniversary of [my] ordination to the priesthood – recapitulatio, ut ita dicam, historica [a historical recollection, so to speak]

Reading: Rahner K., XX siècle – siècle de grâce? [twentieth century – the century of grace?]. Opus Creationis – opus Redemptionis [the order of creation – the order of redemption].

(La Rédemption au Coeur de Marie [Redemption in Mary’s Heart]).

Compline

1 November

Rosary (petitionary); Lauds

Meditation: Memories from the ceremony of the sacrament of priesthood ‘ut quidquid benedixerint, benedicatur, et quidquid consecraverint, consecretur et sanctificetur’ [‘that whatever they bless may be blessed, and whatever they consecrate may be consecrated and made holy’].

– On the priest’s hands – Nothing, however, was ‘right’, until the point when I felt great humility towards Christ’s work of redemption – in this spirit, Sacrum cum grat. act., Prima [Holy Mass with thanksgiving, Prime].

Further meditation: Christ redeems us and all for the Father, i.e. offers an atoning sacrifice (propitiatorium), which consists in His complete devotion and union with the Father. Hence the Holy Spirit as the breath of both. We – people – are elevated by the act of Christ’s redemption. Even though we remain outside of what ‘happens’ between the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, we nevertheless experience the effects of this wonderful spiritual fertility and abundant love. The redemptive act of Christ the Lord embraces, in a special way, priesthood as the culmination of the sacrificial posture, which is, after all, not alien to man as part of the creation. Redemption (Redemptio) also involves a certain striving towards the re-evaluation of everything that is created, in particular everything that is human – and this, as well, should be shared by the priesthood and reflected in it.

The Way of the Cross

Spiritual reading (S. Paul et l’apostolat d’aujourd’hui [St Paul and Today’s Apostolate] and others)

Rosary (II); Vespers

Meditation practica [concerning practical issues]: Problems: (a) Focusing on ‘one’s own’ matters and the necessity to work on a wider range and broaden one’s orientation in many disciplines; (b) certain conclusions on the issue of the ‘priest–laypeople’ balance, and further tasks; (a

) a search for concise and abstract formulae in relation to the human and priestly reality (‘all’ and ‘different’) esp. the needy.

Adoration: In the Eucharist, Christ the Lord allowed us to draw as close to Himself as possible – particularly through priesthood: the closest to who He is, [illegible] and what He fulfils.

Matins (for the dead); Litany of the Saints

Holy Hour: A personal moment with Christ, a personal wish – waiting for a response. Propitiatio pro peccatis meis [The atoning sacrifice for my sins].

2 November

Rosary; Petitionary prayers; Lauds

Meditation (a) Being much engaged in earthly tasks, in creative work, always to be ready: not to lose perspective. ‘Re-evaluation’ constitutes only one aspect of redemption, which in a sense is its least important aspect (when it comes to the values on ‘this side’); (b) and with this understanding to comprehend the words of the liturgy ‘quia in inferno nulla est redemptio’ [‘for in hell there is no redemption’].

Three Holy Masses; Thanksgiving

Reading (L’Eglise dans le monde qui vient [The Church in the modern world])

The Way of the Cross

Meditation: ‘Copiosa apud Eum Redemptio’ [‘with Him is plenteous redemption’]:

Holiness is the source. In Christ the absolute holiness of God is united hypostatically with the holiness of man. God’s holiness (as the love of good and the hatred of evil), but first and foremost as the love of good in everything, even the one who is evil (per accidens [contingently]). All good (the entire sum of values) outside God has its prototype in God Himself. God loves one in another – in this consists His holiness. This holiness is the basis for redemption – also understood as the ‘re-evaluation’ of everything: God restores the value of everything in man, who is personally united with Him. He is Christ – Redemptor [Redeemer]: the holiness of man consists in receiving this good, which God loves – in this manner Christ becomes the model of holiness. In Him that holiness is in a way identical to redemption (Redemptio). In us it has to depend on, first, conversion to God, and second, re-evaluation of everything in accordance with the value that everything has in God, and which Christ the Lord has shown to us.

Rosary; Adoration; Vespers

Meditation super experimentum [on experience]: (An element of risk.) Everything has to be permanently in God’s hands and dependent on God’s assistance. Hence no psychologisation, but moral and, first and foremost, religious orientation (i.e. in Mary’s hands).

Conversation with M.W. (a) missionary–apostolic element; (b) God makes use of different people.

Penitential psalms

Meditation: Conversion in actu quolibet [in every action] has to consist in finding the will of Christ the Lord. There is no other method of opposing the various impulses of human vanity of life; the problem of power, criticism, envy, even together with a certain foundation of some ‘transcendental’ humility towards the Lord God.

Matins (at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

3 November

Rosary; Petitionary prayers; Lauds

Meditation: Redemption began with ‘Totus Tuus’;

Preparation for Holy Mass

Holy Mass; Thanksgiving

Spiritual reading (L’individu dans l’Eglise [The individual in the Church])

Meditation: Redemption began with ‘Totus Tuus’: the one and only person, the new human being to whom God entrusted Himself. God–Son needed Her to fulfil His task. God–Son could entrust to Her His own being in this task, because it was first achieved in Her and He prepared Her for this Totus Tuus. Mary responded to this devotion of God in its entire redemptive sense, its entire dynamics. She drew from it and is still drawing that which is contained in it for each and every person: first, conversion, and second, re-evaluation. And in all who entrust themselves to Her, She performs both in due proportion.

My problem is solved here: recently I have felt I was very much in Mary’s hands and close to God through two specific issues. Yet, has not the order been reversed? Am I not ‘using’ it to do something that is ‘very much mine’? The stance I am taking on these issues is total humility. Here is the solution: In Mary’s hands, according to the ‘Totus Tuus’ principle, the work of redemption must be realised also in me with the proportion between conversion and re-evaluation duly maintained.

The Way of the Cross (with Mary); Pastoral letter; Vespers; Rosary

Meditation: The most appropriate effects of redemption in the human being are deeds that stem from it – deeds that through Mary are rooted in Christ, through one’s belonging to Her (Tuus [Yours]), and that are simultaneously in accordance with Christ’s law, with His gospel – in the highest accordance. Here also, among other things, the issue of Father W. (Three possibilities: to simply remain humble and make use of what is at least partly true in there; to make light of it: he will improve as he is young; ‘to keep watch’ and make sure he has improved intellectually and also ‘morally’. First and foremost, one needs to pray for him and for the right decision.)

Adoration; Final concluding meditation (the issue of envy); Matins (memorial of St Charles);

Rosary

4 November

Holy Mass with the relic of St Charles’s heart, celebrated by the Pope

Meditation: ad instar s. Caroli afferre se ipsum ad bonum commune Ecclesiae et in domicilio et in Dioecesi, participans hoc modo in opere Redemptionis [to work towards the common good of the Church both at home and in the diocese after the example of St Charles, thus participating in the work of salvation].

Adoration

[1 December 1962]

Missa ad intentionem satisfaciendi S. Cordi BMV [Mass offered in reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Mary]

[2 December 1962]: First Sunday of Advent