Thomas Griffin 10/21/24
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Pope St. John Paul II is one of the most well-known figures of the 20th century. He has become known for his joy and staunch faith in the face of adversity. As a boy he lost every immediate member of his family before he turned 21 years old. He grew up during the Communist Occupation in Poland and he attended an underground seminary out of threat of death.
He later became a priest and bishop who was known for his commitment to building up the faith among young people and being driven to love each person as a result of the intimacy he experienced in daily prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
John Paul was pope for over 26 years. He spoke and wrote countless powerful words about the faith. Homilies, letters, encyclicals, and speeches that span topics of evangelization, prayer, faith and reason as well as human dignity. To summarize the message of his life would be borderline impossible.
The impact of Pope John Paul II was truly, and still is, a witness of inspiration. His life, words and witness bred courageous and intentional faith. The following quote shines a light on his ability to convey the critical nature of personal faith with Jesus Christ as a real living person, risen from the dead. He once said:
“It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life…It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
Happiness is the common denominator between all people of all time periods. We all desire to be fulfilled and to have true happiness. In the Christian perspective, happiness and joy are different. Happiness is dependent on the factors around you and it can be something that is fleeting. The feelings of happiness can come and go; they are often not under our control. Christian joy is different.
True joy is a permanent disposition. It is a state of being that is not dependent on one’s circumstances and endures within a person. Joy is based on knowing one’s identity and knowing one’s future. Your identity is that you are a child of God. God made you. He desired that you exist and that you know Him intimately in this world so that you an be with Him forever in the next. Your future is your destiny. This does not mean that you will automatically enter one path. It means that you were made for eternal union with God.
John Paul II knew his identity and he knew his destiny. He knew who he was and he knew what he was made for. That is why he was able to be a person of true joy despite the suffering of his early life, the perseverance through communism and the many struggles of his later life (including being shot at point blank range while he was pope).
Whenever we desire happiness or contact with beauty. Whenever we have a feeling in our core that stirs us to embark on a great task, that is God working within us – inviting us to come into contact with our identity and our destiny.
Ultimately, nothing in this world can satisfy us. Winners of the lottery can often be less happy than a poor child from a third world country. Some people might have every possession at their fingertips but be yearning to have a true friend. Some might have the coolest toys but be missing a faith life or a relationship with their children because they prioritize career over everything.
Today, John Paul invites us to be courageous in seeking greatness by living the spirit of Christian joy. Today, he invites us to not simply have a smile and endure the hardships of life, but to know that Jesus Christ is alive and with us in our challenges. It is he that walks with us as we carry the crosses of illness, anxiety, depression, finances or the death of a loved one. Christ does not ask us to deny the pain of our crosses but to keep our eyes fixed on the light that emanates from the empty tomb as he walks with us.
If we do that, we will be seeking to be great. If we do that we can have a permanent disposition of joy because we will know that we are not alone and we will know that God will always take care of us – even if it looks like our situation is unfixable.
The best way to live this way is to make constant contact with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. We know that Pope St. John Paul II spent hours every day in front of the Real Presence. He often chose to pray rather than to sleep. If he could spend time each day in prayer with the schedule of the leader of the Catholic world – so can we.
See in that Sacred Host, the face of God – Jesus Christ – waiting for you to know of his love and calling you to be great: to be a person of Christian joy.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
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