One Sunday while visiting one of the Roman parishes, the Holy Father noticed a boy tearing away from the crowd, with a sharp face, with his hands in his pockets. He was maybe eight or nine years old. The Pope gave a sing to the gendarmes to let the boy approach him. The boy began to tell him that his mother was still preparing and that he had come forward alone. Also because, he said, he brought him a gift. “I’m poor; I can only give you that.” He put his hand out of his pocket and gave him a candy. John Paul II took it with emotions and thanked the boy: “But I do not deserve this.” Then, Pope Wojtyła repeated these words an infinite number of times, for example, when during improvised speeches he had to give thanks, especially during the pilgrimages.
The gesture of this child, a gesture seemingly simple, but with extraordinary transparency, has taught the head of the Catholic Church how something small – unlike the behavior of adults – is able to express a radical experience of selflessness. Similarly, to a San Francisco boy suffering from AIDS, who taught Pope Wojtyła when he hugged him, how one could continue to live with such a terrible and unjust disease, entrusting himself calmly to the arms of the Lord.
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaw BM Publishing House, Krakow 2013
