After Polish, French and Italian the fourth, Spanish version, of spirituals retreats for artists, delivered by Bishop Karol Wojtyla in 1962 in the Holy Cross Church in Krakow, was published. The book entitled El Evangelio y el arte. Ejercicios espirituales para artistas was released by the Madrid publishing house Ciudad Nueva. The Spanish translation – just like Italian before – was preceded by a foreword of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and by an afterword of Prof. Jacek Popiel from Jagiellonian University. Additionally the publication was enriched with a Letter to Artists by Pope John Paul II.
Why are we writing about this? It is not only because this remarkable book, containing unpublished for nearly 50 years reflections of the future pope, was created on the base of a typescript from the archive of our Centre. We are not doing this due to the fact that the first Polish version, released in 2011 in collaboration with the Intercultural Dialogue Institute of John Paul II in Krakow, met with vivid great interest among readers, and its careful editorial design impressed a jury of the prestigious competition “The Most Beautiful Books of the Year 2011”, organized by the Polish Association of Book Publishers. We share this news because new releases reinforce our conviction that the message of Karol Wojtyla’s spiritual retreats, originally addressed to artists from Krakow, has gone far beyond this narrow circle, beyond historical, social, and geographical context in which it was delivered. Today it is arriving to a wide range of readers and it should arrive to each one of us.
Is not it so that each of us is in some sense an artist? And the most important talent that we have is our humanity, and the work we are creating is our own life? Goodness and Beauty, two profiles of one God that should be reflected in the lives of each of us – this is a universal aspect of the message brought by the book The Gospel and Art. Detailed information about the books can be obtained by writing to the following address: info@jp2doc.org