In the book Miejsce dla każdego. Opowieść o świętości Jana Pawła II (A Place for Everyone. The Story of the Holiness of John Paul II), published in 2013, and being conversations of Brygida Grysiak with Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki, the deputy private secretary of the Holy Father John Paul II, we can read:
“Archbishop Mokrzycki saw a real gleam in the eye of John Paul II, when the Pope looked at the Child in the manger in the nativity scene. He always looked at the little Jesus with love. And when he carried Him from the Basilica to the crib, he also did it with great love, and this could be seen staying closer to him. And then, when he was putting the little Jesus on Mary’s knees, it also happened in this way. And when he looked into the crib, it was not only from the children’s curiosity, but just to show us how to look at Jesus”.
This is a very important fragment, not only in Opowieść o świętości Jana Pawła II, mentioned above, but also for our view and experience of the mystery of the Incarnation, this – as Fr. Jan Twardowski constantly repeated – “basic and the most important truth of Christianity”:
“God became man – the priest-poet said. This is a staggering truth, the deepest and intellectually the most surprising. You cannot understand it or invent it, it had to be revealed. The Incarnation – together with the Holy Trinity, the Eucharist and the announcement that we will see God face to face – is one of the few great theological truths”.
John Paul II was a mystic, what was already revealed in his early poems. In Song of the Hidden God, Karol Wojtyła, then a seminarian, wrote:
Your memory always meanders
back to that morning in winter.
For many years you believed, knew for certain
and still you are lost in wonder.
Bent over a lamp, a sheaf of light in a knot
over your head. You look up no more,
not knowing – is he out there, or
here in the depth of closed eyes?There, he is there. Only a tremor here,
only words retrieved from nothingness.
Oh – and a particle still remains
of that amazement which will become the essence
of eternity.(Shores of Silence, 2)
Every word is important here, because the verses above evoke perhaps the most important moment in the life of the future saint. “Your memory always meanders back to…” The author still relives the event, when Christ appeared to him, alive and true, in a particular place and a particular time – some “winter morning”. He found the author prepared – “For many years you believed, knew for certain…” but – “still you are lost in wonder”. It is hard to be otherwise, because the author of this confession reached the transcendent, supernatural reality of “what eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Thanks to his faith, the poet lost nothing from this meeting, but retained in himself – we can it repeat – “a particle… of that amazement which will become the essence of eternity”. Since then, all the time he was talking about the amazement, even about the “great wonder”, as in this beautiful passage of the already quoted poem:
I bring you good news of great wonder, Hellenic masters:
it is pointless to watch over existence
which slips out of our hands,
for there is a Beauty more real
concealed in the living blood.
(Shores of Silence,13)
And here there is another fragment of the poem with that key word – amazement:
I often think of that day of vision:
it will be filled with amazement
at the Simplicity
that can hold
the world.
And the world dwells in it, untouched
until now, and beyond.And then the simple necessity grows
to a still greater yearning
for that one day
embracing all things
with the immeasurable Simplicity
that love’s breathing can bring.
(Shores of Silence,16)
Another passage of the poem leaves no doubt that the most important moments, which can be considered as the source of the human longing for Christ, are children’s experiences related to Christmas that remain within us forever. Hence the “gleam in the eye of John Paul II, when the Pope looked at the Child in the manger in the nativity scene”, so well remembered by Archbishop Mokrzycki, and assertion that John Paul II “always looked at the little Jesus with love”.
In the poem discussed herein we find verses that confirm this moving testimony:
If, at its greatest, love is simple
and desire most simple in yearning,
then no wonder God desired
acceptance from simple men,
their souls made of white,
but no words for their love.
Then when He gave us love
wrapped in its simple charms –
in poverty, poverty and hay,
the Mother took the baby
and rocked him in her arms,
and in a jerkin tenderly
she tucked his little feet.
(Song of the Inexhaustible Sun, 7)
From a certain perspective, it is impossible to separate the childish delight in the little Jesus, the crib, the manger and the hay from the conscious experiencing of the incomprehensible mystery – the miracle of the birth of God, who has always been, but for us, for our salvation – as we say in a prayer – became man. I am convinced that in the case of St. John Paul II we can speak of a mystical encounter with Christ, alive and true as in the meetings recorded in The Diary of St. Faustina.
“For Christians – as Bishop Zbigniew Kiernikowski has written – a turning point within the understanding of mysticism is the incarnation of Jesus Christ… In the incarnate Word transcendent God became palpable, and so close to man that turned Himself, somehow, subjected to him… Man’s recognition of this so strongly loving closeness… has the power to put him in contemplation and ecstasy, i.e. going beyond himself to be united with God this way coming to man”.
And this state is expressed in the poetic verses of Karol Wojtyła:
Love explained all for me,
all was resolved by love,
so this love I adore
wherever it may be.
(Shores of Silence, 5)
All love is from There and God is love. This truth, coming from the grotto in Bethlehem, overwhelms us just like love of our parents did. This love cannot not exist, it seems to be “since always”. Admiration and adoration with which we are approaching Jesus – this Love who came into the world – remains unchanged even when we ceased to be children long ago. A Christmas crib means the beginning of our meetings with God Incarnate. In a similar manner we later experience preparations to the First Communion:
In a child’s single look
fixed on the gentle Host
I met the heavenly Father
looking at me with love.
(Song of the Inexhaustible Sun, 8)
Not everyone, we must admit, retains that delight in later years. But there are also those who, learning from ever wider experiences, do not lose anything of their childish delight. And hence – we can repeat once again, returning to the testimony of Archbishop Mokrzycki – there was that gleam in the eye of John Paul II at the thought of the Creator’s love surrounding us.
Waldemar Smaszcz