October 22 + Saint Pope John Paul II

“This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops. Do not be afraid to break out of comfortable and routine modes of living in order to take up the challenge of making Christ known in the modern metropolis.” ― Pope John Paul II

Born in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Jozef Wojtyla had lost his mother, father, and older brother before his 21st birthday. Karol’s promising academic career at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University was cut short by the outbreak of World War II. While working in a quarry and a chemical factory, he enrolled in an “underground” seminary in Kraków. Ordained in 1946, he was immediately sent to Rome where he earned a doctorate in theology.

Back in Poland, a short assignment as assistant pastor in a rural parish preceded his very fruitful chaplaincy for university students. Soon Fr. Wojtyla earned a doctorate in philosophy and began teaching that subject at Poland’s University of Lublin.

Communist officials allowed Wojtyla to be appointed auxiliary bishop of Kraków in 1958, considering him a relatively harmless intellectual. They could not have been more wrong. Appointed as archbishop of Kraków in 1964, he was named a cardinal three years later.

Elected pope in October 1978, he took the name of his short-lived, immediate predecessor. Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. In time, he made pastoral visits to 124 countries, including several with small Christian populations.

Perhaps the best known, modern day, saintly pair of friends would be John Paul II and Mother Teresa. John Paul II had visited Mother Teresa's hospice for the dying in Kolkata during his pilgrimage to India in 1986 and the two became close friends. Mother Teresa called it “the happiest day of my life.”

When he arrived, Mother Teresa climbed up into the white popemobile and kissed the ring of the supreme pontiff, who then kissed the top of Mother’s head — a greeting they would exchange almost every time they met. Mother Teresa frequently appeared at Vatican ceremonies at the Pope's side until her death in 1997.

On May 13, 1981, the Polish pontiff passed through the thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, blessing the crowds from his open Popemobile. Suddenly four gun shots were fired at close range and John Paul II collapsed into the arms of his aides as the Popemobile was driven away at speed. The 60-year-old pontiff, who had been hit in the abdomen, left hand and right arm, was rushed to Rome's Gemelli hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. No vital organs had been hit and the pontiff would later credit his survival to Our Lady of Fatima.

In his 27 years of papal ministry, Pope John Paul II wrote 14 encyclicals and five books, canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338 people. In the last years of his life, he suffered from Parkinson’s disease and was forced to cut back on some of his activities. He died in 2005 at the age of 84.