Литагент HarperCollins - In God’s Hands - The Spiritual Diaries of Pope St John Paul II

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 ’; 8Preparation 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); 9Rosary

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

There are, so to speak, two planes: the divine plane (the love of the Son–Word for the Father) and the human plane (people’s yearning for the true God, for the revelation of God in the Son–Word). These two planes approach and come into contact with each other – this is the spirit of Advent.

My Advent (a reminder from last year): a strong wish for God–Christ to enter into every matter. In this context, there is the experimental meaning too: it is still in fieri [in the process of ‘becoming’] in me, in others, in an objective way and regarding its future sense.

Aims:

1. To ask for peace and good for the Church of Kraków, efficacy of action, vocations.

2. To prepare the basis for the retreat.

3. To move forward certain tasks.

In general: preferably the form of reflection days (= meditation connected with other tasks).

Confession; Holy Mass; Meditation; The Way of the Cross; The Little Ways 2

(a) Numerous threads, reflective and ‘existential’. One needs to bring them all here and pass them into These Hands in accordance with the principle ‘ Totus Tuus ’ [‘Entirely Yours’].

(b) The main topic of the retreat emerges: ‘between past and future’.

19 August

Compline; Adoration; Meditation

20 August

Lauds; Prime

Meditation before Holy Mass:

1. Holy Mass brings the rhythm of Christ, the rhythm of the Son of God into our lives.

2. (The integrating role of consciousness – the disintegrating role of sensuousness.)

Holy Mass; Thanksgiving; Reading the Holy Scripture; Reading the Council schema; Meditation; The Way of the Cross

A reference to the previous retreat held in Rome on 31 October – [4] November 1962. The dogmatic topic that requires a deeper spiritual reflection is the mystery of justification ( iustificatio ). Man cannot be ‘just’ before God; he can only be ‘justified’ before Him. The former is proved by the fact that man is not equal to God, his Creator, and the latter by Christ and the entire order of grace.

No creature can be in a position of justice before its Creator. Man is in a way a synthesis of creatures. As a creature in general, he and his existence are unconditionally dependent on his Creator; he is dependent also by virtue of his nature and, consequently, unequivocally subordinate. As a being endowed with vegetative (sensual) life, he is subject to the laws of life and death ( generatio et corruptio ) like other creatures. As a spiritual being – a person – he bears a more special resemblance to the Creator, which obligates him to maintain the order of justice, i.e. to give to everybody what rightly belongs to them (which also includes paying religious worship to God). The fact of personhood does not render invalid man’s vegetativeness and animalitas [animal nature], which turns him into ‘ash and nothing’ 2before his Creator. As a person, man can enter into personal contact with the Creator; this contact, however, has to be initiated by the Creator. When He initiates it, it consists (like the act of creation) in an act of mercy, because man as a creature is fully dependent and subordinate. In particular, he needs to be justified because of his sin, which, as an offence to God, does harm to the very essence of this personal contact understood in the way it is understood and intended by the Creator – and it is His prerogative to define the essence of the contact He establishes with His rational creature.

Justification comes through Christ, the Son of God, who initiates this essential contact and gives it, to a certain extent, the qualities of His contact with the Father. Therefore, justification is expressed in us as the new esse [being] – ‘ esse ad Patrem ’ [‘being towards the Father’] (i.e. sanctifying grace), and the continuation of this personal contact consists in faith, hope and love.