Many say that his entire life was Lent. A moment of truth. Preparation for the cross. To meet the Risen Christ. When, in 1976, he conducted a retreat for Pope Paul VI and the Roman Curia, he recalled his childhood and the first time he heard the words of St. Paul: “Christ humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a Cross.” Karol Wojtyła was still a young boy at the time. And, as he said, those words affected him emotionally. “I will never forget the first experience of these words and this liturgy in the great setting of the Wawel Cathedral. I went there as a teenage boy in the afternoon of Holy Wednesday, when for the first time the dark Laudes was sung. I remember the rows of benches occupied by the seminary alumni, stalls in which the prelates and canons sat with dignity, and finally at the grand altar of the Cathedral, the Metropolitan of Krakow, the unforgettable Prince Adam Sapiecha. In the central place there was the great tripod, on which the candles were burning, extinguished as the gathered finished singing the individual psalms.” Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki recalls their last Lent, and the last Easter. He says that alongside John Paul II he touched the mystery of the cross more strongly than ever before. That John Paul II, dying before the eyes of the entire world, commanded us all to touch this cross. And, to try to understand. I looked at him – recalls the former papal secretary – and I saw Christ going to Golgotha. I saw him preparing to die. I saw his suffers. He taught us how to live beautifully and how to die with dignity. Suffering, but with confidence and serene smile in anticipation of the encounter with the Risen Christ. (…) Once the Archbishop said that when he closes his eyes, he sees John Paul II putting on a cape and marching to the terrace. On the terrace of the papal apartment there were Stations of the Cross. Instead of Simon of Cyrene there was John Paul II. He was helping Christ to carry the cross. It was the vision of the author of the Stations of the Cross, an Italian artist– says Archbishop Mokrzycki. The Holy Father had such a life. Until the last heartbeat.
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
