How St. John Paul II Faced Fear (And How You Can Too) – Ascension

How St. John Paul II Faced Fear (And How You Can Too) – Four Moments from St. John Paul II’s Life Grief: Karol Wojtyła lost his mother at 8 and his older brother at 12. At 20, he came home to find his father had died. He wasn’t present for any of their deaths. He spent the night kneeling beside his father’s body, weeping and praying, and later said he had never felt more alone. Yet there he found an abiding presence that carried him forward. Nazi occupation: As a young man, he worked in a rock quarry to avoid deportation, was struck by a Gestapo truck and left on the roadside, and studied in the clandestine underground seminary. When the Gestapo rounded up thousands of young men, he hid in terror behind a basement door, likely praying in cruciform position. An officer stood right outside but never opened the door. The city without God: The communists built Nowa Huta outside Kraków as the first Polish city intentionally designed without a church. As a young auxiliary bishop, Wojtyła stood with the workers who wanted a cross and a church, reminding them they were not a people who belonged to no one, but children of God. Suffering and old age: Battling Parkinson’s disease, he wrote his 1999 Letter to the Elderly, reflecting on how aging strips away pride and forces complete reliance on God. At Christmas 2004, struggling to breathe, he told Vatican officials that the passing years make one feel an ever greater need for God’s help, then handed his speech to an aide because he couldn’t finish it. ​Ascension