Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Pope John Paul II. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus II; Italian: Giovanni Paolo II; Polish: Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛv vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the third day of the conclave and adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him. John Paul II is recognised as helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland and the rest of Europe.
John Paul II attempted to improve the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He upheld the Church's teachings on such matters as the right to life, artificial contraception, the ordination of women, and a celibate clergy, and although he supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, he was seen as generally conservative in their interpretation. He was one of the most travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he beatified 1,340 and canonised 483 people, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during the preceding five centuries. By the time of his death, he had named most of the College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated many of the world's bishops, and ordained many priests.
John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history after Pope Pius IX. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since the 16th-century Pope Adrian VI. John Paul II's cause for canonisation commenced one month after his death with the traditional five-year waiting period waived. On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor, Benedict XVI, and was beatified on 1 May 2011 (Divine Mercy Sunday) after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints attributed one miracle to his intercession, the healing of a French nun called Marie Simon Pierre from Parkinson's disease. A second miracle was approved on 2 July 2013, and confirmed by Pope Francis two days later. John Paul II was canonised on 27 April 2014 (again Divine Mercy Sunday), together with John XXIII. On 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added these two optional memorials to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints. It is traditional to celebrate saints' feast days on the anniversary of their deaths, but that of John Paul II (22 October) is celebrated on the anniversary of his papal inauguration. Posthumously, he has been referred to by some Catholics as "St. John Paul the Great", although the title has no official recognition.
Animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren.
A community needs a soul if it is to become a true home for human beings. You, the people must git it this soul.
The Holy Father reiterates his firm and absolute disapproval of such actions that offend God, violate the fundamental right to life and undermine peaceful coexistence.
The world looks to the priest, because it looks to Jesus! No one can see Christ; but everyone sees the priest, and through him they wish to catch a glimpse of the Lord! Immense is the grandeur of the Lord! Immense is the grandeur and dignity of the priest!
Your wish to become a priest, or at least your wish to discover if you are being called to be one. And so the question is a serious one, because you have to prepare thoroughly, with clear intentions and an austere formation.
Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly… Do this in complete faith and confidence.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide are never acceptable acts of mercy. They always gravely exploit the suffering and desperate, extinguishing life in the name of the quality of life itself.
Reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way.
All that is carried along
by the stream's silvery cascade,
rhythmically falling from the mountain,
carried by its own current --
carried where?
Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.
The challenge is to make the church's yes to life concrete and effective. The struggle will be long, and it needs each one of you. Place your intelligence, your talents, your enthusiasm, your compassion and your fortitude at the service of life!
A process of genocide is being carried out before the eyes of the world.
The body in its masculinity and femininity has been called from the beginning to become the manifestation of the spirit. The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.
The truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity.
There are many examples of this mistaken idea of freedom, such as the elimination of human life by legalized or generally accepted abortion.
The Gospel must not be kept hidden because of fear or indifference. It was never meant to be hidden away in private. It has to be put on a stand so that people may see its light and give praise to our Heavenly Father.
In our time, in particular, there exists another form of ownership which is becoming no less important than land: the possession of know-how, technology and skill. The wealth of the industrialized nations is based much more on this kind of ownership than on natural resources.
The body, in fact, and it alone is capable of making visible that which is invisible; the spiritual and the divine.
Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice.
To humanity, which sometimes seems to be lost and dominated by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the risen Lord gives the gift of His love which forgives, reconciles and reopens the soul to hope.
Do not be afraid to be saints. Follow Jesus Christ who is the source of freedom and light. Be open to the Lord so that He may lighten all your ways.
This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops.
Longer Version:
This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops. Do not be afraid to break out of comfortable and routine modes of living in order to take up the challenge of making Christ known in the modern metropolis.
Learning to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity better.
The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.
The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all.
God comes to us in the things we know best and cane verify most easily, the things of our everyday life.
Faith intervenese not to abolish reason's autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts.
The most faithful disciples of Christ have been builders of peace, to the point of forgiving their enemies, sometimes even to the point of giving their lives for them.
Truth can never be confined to time and culture; in history it is known, but it also reaches beyond history.
We cannot interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention to both the consequences of such interference in other areas and to the well-being of future generations.
Truth must be the foundation stone, the cement to solidify the entire social edifice.
A man shows himself a true disciple of Christ by carrying the cross in his turn every day in the activity that he is called to perform.
The conviction which we must share and spread is that the call to holiness is directed to all Christians. This is not a question of privilege or of spiritual elitism. It is a question of a grace offered to all the baptized.
The film industry has become a universal medium exercising a profound influence on the development of people's attitudes and choices, and possessing a remarkable ability to influence public opinion and culture across all social and political frontiers.
The most urgent task is that of the biblical and liturgical formation of the people of God.
The battle against the devil, which is the principal task of Saint Michael the Archangel, is still being fought today, because the devil is still alive and active in the world.
Once again, through myself, the Church, in the words of the well-known declaration Nostra Aetate, 'deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and by anyone.' I repeat, 'By anyone.'
Look, I can surely say by now that I've got the antibodies to communism inside me. But when I think of consumer society, with all its tragedies, I wonder which of the two systems is better.
In my reading and in my studies I always tried to achieve a harmony between faith, reason, and the heart. These are not separate areas, but are profoundly interconnected, each giving life to the other.
Beauty is the vocation bestowed on the artist by the Creator in the gift of artistic talent.
There must be a cooperation of all who believe in God, knowing that authentic religiousness -- far from placing individuals and peoples in conflict with one another -- rather pushes them together to build a world of peace.
When we go before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament we represent the one in the world who is in most need of God's Mercy. We Stand in behalf of the one in the world who does not know Christ and who is farthest away from God and we bring down upon their soul the Precious Blood of The Lamb.
In the context of the great mystery of Christ and of the Church, all are called to respond -- as a bride -- with the gift of their lives to the inexpressible gift of the love of Christ, who alone, as the Redeemer of the world, is the Church's Bridegroom.
Be demanding of the world around you; be demanding first of all with yourselves. Be children of God; take pride in it!
And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?
Chastity is a difficult long term matter, one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time chastity is the sure way to happiness.
There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us.
Where, if not in the Divine Mercy, can the world find refuge and the light of hope?
You must be strong, dear brothers and sisters. You must be strong with the strength that comes from faith.
Confidently open your most intimate aspirations to the Love of Christ who waits for you in the Eucharist. You will receive the answer to all your worries and you will see with joy that the consistency of your life which He asks of you is the door to fulfill the noblest dreams of your youth.
Your faith will help you realize that it is Jesus Himself Who is present in the Blessed Sacrament, waiting for you and calling you to spend one special specific hour with Him each week.
This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist.
It is the responsibility of Pastors to encourage, also by their personal witness, the practice of Eucharistic adoration, and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in particular, as well as prayer of adoration before Christ present under the Eucharistic species.
The Eucharist is a priceless treasure: by not only celebrating it but also by praying before it outside of Mass we are enabled to make contact with the very wellspring of grace.
In the Mass and in Eucharistic Adoration we meet the merciful love of God that passes through the Heart of Jesus Christ.
I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother. I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment.
Confession is an act of honesty and courage -- an act of entrusting ourselves, beyond sin, to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God.
Around the world, we can see the results of exploitation which destroys much without taking future generations into account. Today, all men have a duty to show themselves worthy of the mission given them by the Creator by ensuring the safekeeping of that creation.
The person who does not decide to love forever will find it very difficult to really love for even one day.
Motherhood implies from the beginning a special openness to the new person: and this is precisely the woman's 'part'. In this openness, in conceiving and giving birth to a child, the woman 'discovers herself through a sincere gift of self'.
God is Love. We eventually have to ask ourselves the question; why was Love nailed to a cross?
Christ is the sacrament of the invisible God -- a sacrament that indicates presence. God is with us.
There is nothing more man needs than Divine Mercy -- that love which is benevolent, which is compassionate, which raises man above his weakness to the infinite heights to the holiness of God.
We must understand that in order 'to do', we must first learn 'to be', that is to say, in the sweet company of Jesus in adoration.
Be holy men and women! Do not forget that the fruits of the apostolate depend on the depth of the spiritual life, on the intensity of prayer, of continual formation and sincere adhesion to the directives of the Church.
Love of Christ does not distract us from interest in others, but rather invites us to responsibility for them, to the exclusion of no one.
Take heart young people! Christ is calling you and the world awaits you! Remember the Kingdom of God needs your generous and complete dedication.
Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.
The most profound and serious indication of the moral implications underlying the ecological problem is the lack of respect for life evident in many of the patterns of environmental pollution.
May Mary, who in the freedom of her 'Fiat' and her presence at the foot of the cross, offered to the world, Jesus, the Liberator, help us to find him in the Sacrament of the altar.
Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it.
Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person's good.
The greater the feeling of responsibility for the person the more true love there is.
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth- in a word, to know himself- so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.
None of us is alone in this world; each of us is a vital piece of the great mosaic of humanity as a whole.
The only struggle which religions can justify, the only struggle worthy of humans, is the moral struggle against humanity's own disordered passions, against every kind of selfishness, against attempts to oppress others, against every type of hatred and violence.
Quotes by Pope John Paul II are featured in:
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