[Apologetics] REVEALING NEW BOOK ON JOHN PAUL DOCUMENTS MYSTICAL SIDE, INCLUDING A TRANSFIGURED FACE

[Dianne Dawson]

REVEALING NEW BOOK ON JOHN PAUL DOCUMENTS MYSTICAL SIDE, INCLUDING A 
TRANSFIGURED FACE 
Anyone with doubts about 
the effectiveness of traditional Catholic prayer and relics need only look at 
Pope John Paul II -- whose life, as it turns out, was even more prayerful, 
self-sacrificing, and mystical that previously related.
  
Let's start with the 
self-sacrifice:
  
According to Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who has 
written an international bestseller, Why He Is A Saint (published in New 
York, London, and Milan), the late pontiff constantly helped the needy and as a 
priest literally gave shirts, jackets, and coats off his back, even in frigid 
weather. That generosity continued as he was promoted up through the hierarchy. 
On one occasion, the future saint gave a poor family in Brazil his very 
cardinal's ring -- which had been presented to him by Pope Paul VI! Blessed John 
Paul II  even gave away his shoes -- his only pair, in another case (forcing him 
to ask for a pair before celebrating Mass). 
  
That 
unselfishness and his mystical side drew even the most worldly to 
appreciate his unique presence. This is a Pope who would often upset travel 
schedules by halting to pray, at great length, in front of a tabernacle or at a 
Marian shrine. In fact, he promised the Madonna to visit a shrine for every 
vocation added to one particular monastery that suddenly boomed with new 
vocations. He walked five miles to one. 
  
He readied for the morning 
services the night before, reciting the preparatory prayers in Latin. When he 
awoke, he remembered the intention for which he was to celebrate Mass. When he 
arrived in the sacristy, he would kneel and pray for fifteen to twenty minutes. 
The Pope once was heard to say, "They try to understand me from without. But I 
can only be understood from within."
  
Those working at the 
Vatican or other offices would be shocked to find him praying in a closet, or 
spread out -- for hours -- on a cold marble floor, his arms outstretched to form 
a Cross. Here is the "charisma" -- the presence -- that drew presidents and even 
Mikhail Gorbachev! 
  
One aide even found him 
praying in a washroom, kneeling in front of a sink. Every morning, when he 
emerged from the refectory after breakfast, he would walk through the sacristy 
and kiss all the relics kept on a table next to the altar. 
  
"So many times I saw his 
face, after contemplation and Adoration, visibly changed and happy," said one 
person close to him. "During prayer he seemed to be in continual conversation 
with God, like Moses who spoke with God Face to Face. During prayer, Wojtyła did 
not notice anything that happened around him. He seemed to lose all sense of 
time, to the extent that his secretary at a certain point would have to shake 
him out of this extraordinary state of concentration because other commitments 
awaited him."
  
Long intellectual debates 
upon which he was to base a decision often were left hanging as he concluded 
that he would pray about the answer.
  
At one 
point, when martial law was declared in Poland, John Paul II -- "with the 
greatest of tranquility" -- told assembled Polish monsignors, "We must pray 
greatly and wait for a sign from God."
  
It certainly affirms what 
many Marian, charismatic, and traditionalist Catholics likewise practice. 
  
During Mass, he elevated the Host for 
very long periods, carefully showing it to each side of the altar. On Good 
Fridays, he was greatly relieved at three p.m. because the Lord was then off the 
Cross.
  
He had a particular 
reverence for the saints. He read files on them constantly. He invoked 
especially the Blessed Mother as "Queen of Poland, Virgin of Jasna Góra, Virgin 
of Kalwaria, Virgin of Myślenice, Virgin of Rychwald, Virgin of Ostra Brama, 
along with the Virgin of Fatima. Monsignor Slawomir -- who is postulator of John 
Paul's cause -- documents a particular fondness of the Pope's for the as-yet 
unapproved site of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where the author says John 
Paul II sent one archbishop incognito to report back. Did John Paul II -- as 
many have speculated -- actually see Mary himself? Asked this by a member of his 
entourage, the Pope had said, "No, I've never seen the Madonna, but I sense 
her."
  
And then there was Padre 
Pio. The famous stigmatic winked at Father Wojtyła when he arrived in San 
Giovanni Rotundo as a priest and some time later described to a seminarian a 
Polish pope who would be "a great fisher of men" (followed by one who would 
"amply confirm the brothers," which some now say was a reference to the current 
pontiff). While it is well-known that the future Pope met St. Pio in 1947 -- and 
that several healings were effected by the requests of Wojtyła to the monk on 
behalf of the infirm (including a spectacular cure of "incurable" cancer) -- 
what has not been widely revealed is that John Paul II, as that younger priest, 
once discussed the stigmata with St. Pio (who allegedly told him his shoulder 
wound was the most painful -- an interesting comment in light of recent accounts 
that state, at least in the initial years, that Pio did not have the shoulder 
wound, but one on his side).  
Slawomir documents other "unusual episodes" in the life of 
the great Wojtyła, including the recollection of a witness who had an audience 
with the Pope after taking part in his private chapel Mass. "At a certain point 
in the conversation," says Slawomir, "[the witness] had the impression that the 
pontiff's face wavered and vanished, replaced by the benevolent image of the 
face of Padre Pio. When he revealed his experience to the Pope, he heard the 
simple reply, 'I see him, too.'"
  
"His devoted love for Mary 
only grew and flourished when the connection between the third secret of Fatima 
and the assassination attempt of May 1981 became clear," writes the postulator. 
"In connection with the dramatic event, extrajudicial sources confirm, John Paul 
II also saw a link with the apparitions of the Queen of Peace in Medjugorje, in 
the former Yugoslavia, which began at the end of June of the same year. The Pope 
spoke of it in very favorable terms and said, 'To say that nothing is happening 
at Medjugorje means denying the living and praying testimony of thousands of 
people who have been there.' To Monsignor Murilo Sebastião Ramos Krieger, 
archbishop of Florianopolis in Brazil, who was going for the fourth time on a 
pilgrimage, he confirmed, 'Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the 
world.'"
  
"The intensity and the rapt 
concentration with which he addressed Mary conferred upon the Pope, in the eyes 
of those who observed him, an almost supernatural aura," adds the postulator.
   
"A guest at Castel Gandolfo 
during the summer holidays recalled that after regularly reciting the Rosary 
with him in the garden, 'John Paul II went over to the statue of the Madonna of 
Lourdes and asked me to step away. He spent at least another half hour praying 
there, and it was as if his person were also physically transformed."
  
[resources: Why He Is a Saint]

Like a deer that longs for running waters so my soul longs for you, O God.
Ps 42:1
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