The testament of
6.3.1979
(and successive
additions)
“Totus Tuus ego
sum”
In the Name of the
Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
“Watch
therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (cf.
Matthew 24, 42) - these words remind me of the last call, which will
happen at the moment the Lord wishes. I desire to follow Him, and I
desire that everything making up part of my earthly life should prepare
me for this moment. I do not know when the moment will come, but like
everything else, I place it too in the hands of the Mother of my Master:
Totus Tuus. In the same maternal Hands I leave everything and
everyone with whom my life and vocation have linked me. In these Hands I
leave, above all, the Church, as well as my Nation and all humanity. I
thank everyone. Of everyone I ask forgiveness. I also ask for prayer,
that the Mercy of God may appear greater than my weakness and
unworthiness.
During the
spiritual exercises I reread the testament of the Holy Father Paul VI.
That reading prompted me to write this testament.
I leave no
property behind me of which it is necessary to dispose. As for the
everyday objects that were of use to me, I ask they be distributed as
seems appropriate. My personal notes are to be burned. I ask that this
be attended to by Father Stanislaw, whom I thank for his collaboration
and help, so prolonged over the years and so understanding. As for all
other thanks, I leave them in my heart before God Himself, because it is
difficult to express them.
As for the
funeral, I repeat the same dispositions as were given by the Holy Father
Paul VI. (Here is a note in the margin: burial in the bare earth, not in
a sarcophagus, 13.3.92).
“Apud Dominum misericordia et copiosa apud Eum
redemptio.”
John Paul pp. II
Rome, 6.III.1979
After my death I ask
for Masses and prayers.
5.III.1990
---
(Undated sheet of
paper)
I express
my profound trust that, despite all my weakness, the Lord will grant me
all the grace necessary to face according to His will any task, trial or
suffering that He will ask of His servant, in the course of his life. I
also trust that He will never allow me - through some attitude of mine:
words, deeds or omissions - to betray my obligations in this holy
Petrine See.
24.II-1.III.1980
Also
during these spiritual exercises, I have reflected on the truth of the
Priesthood of Christ in the perspective of that Transit that for each of
us is the moment of our own death. For us the Resurrection of Christ is
an eloquent (notation: added above, decisive) sign of departing
from this world - to be born in the next, in the future world.
I have
read, then, the copy of my testament from last year, also written during
the spiritual exercises - I compared it with the testament of my great
predecessor and Father, Paul VI, with that sublime witness to death of a
Christian and a Pope - and I have renewed within me an awareness of the
questions to which the copy of 6.III.1979 refers, prepared by me (in a
somewhat provisional way).
Today I
wish to add only this: that each of us must bear in mind the prospect of
death. And must be ready to present himself before the Lord and Judge -
Who is at the same time Redeemer and Father. I too continually take this
into consideration, entrusting that decisive moment to the Mother of
Christ and of the Church - to the Mother of my hope.
The times
in which we live are unutterably difficult and disturbed. The path of
the Church has also become difficult and tense, a characteristic trial
of these times - both for the Faithful and for Pastors. In some
Countries (as, for example, in those about which I read during the
spiritual exercises), the Church is undergoing a period of such
persecution as to be in no way lesser than that of early centuries,
indeed it surpasses them in its degree of cruelty and hatred. “Sanguis
martyrum - semen christianorum”. And apart from this - many people
die innocently even in this Country in which we are living.
Once
again, I wish to entrust myself totally to the Lord's grace. He Himself
will decide when and how I must end my earthly life and pastoral
ministry. In life and in death, Totus Tuus in Mary Immaculate.
Accepting that death, even now, I hope that Christ will give me the
grace for the final passage, in other words (notation: “my”)
Easter. I also hope that He makes (notation: “that death”')
useful for this more important cause that I seek to serve: the salvation
of men and women, the safeguarding of the human family and, in that, of
all nations and all peoples (among them, I particularly address my
earthly Homeland), and useful for the people with whom He particularly
entrusted me, for the question of the Church, for the glory of God
Himself.
I do not
wish to add anything to what I wrote a year ago - only to express this
readiness and, at the same time, this trust, to which the current
spiritual exercises have again disposed me.
John Paul II
---
Totus Tuus ego sum
5.III.1982
In the
course of this year’s spiritual exercises I have read (a number of
times) the text of the testament of 6.III.1979. Although I still
consider it provisional (not definitive), I leave it in the form in
which it exists. I change nothing (for now), and neither do I add
anything, as concerns the dispositions contained therein.
The
attempt upon my life on 13.V.1981 in some way confirmed the accuracy of
the words written during the period of the spiritual exercises of 1980
(24.II-1.III).
All the
more deeply I now feel that I am totally in the Hands of God - and I
remain continually at the disposal of my Lord, entrusting myself to Him
in His Immaculate Mother (Totus Tuus)
John Paul pp.II
---
5.III.82
In
connection with the last sentence in my testament of 6.III.1979 (“concerning
the site / that is, the site of the funeral / let the College of
Cardinals and Compatriots decide”) - I will make it clear that I
have in mind: the metropolitan of Krakow or the General Council of the
Episcopate of Poland. In the meantime I ask the College of Cardinals to
satisfy, as far as possible, any demands of the above-mentioned.
---
2. 1.III.1985
(during the spiritual exercises)
Again - as
regards the expression “College of Cardinals and Compatriots”:
the “College of Cardinals” has no obligation to consult “Compatriots”
on this subject, however it can do so, if for some reason it feels it is
right to do so.
JP
II
---
Spiritual exercise
of the Jubilee Year 2000 (12-18.III).
(notation:
“for my testament”)
1. When,
on Oct. 16, 1978, the conclave of cardinals chose John Paul II, the
primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski told me: “The duty of
the new Pope will be to introduce the Church into the Third Millennium.”
I don’t know if I am repeating this sentence exactly, but at least this
was the sense of what I heard at the time. This was said by the Man who
entered history as the primate of the Millennium. A great primate. I was
a witness to his mission, to his total entrustment. To his battles. To
his victory. “Victory, when it comes, will be a victory through Mary”
- The primate of the Millennium used to repeat these words of his
predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond.
In this
way I was prepared in some manner for the duty that presented itself to
me on Oct. 16, 1978. As I write these words, the Jubilee Year 2000 is
already a reality. The night of Dec. 24, 1999, the symbolic Door of the
Great Jubilee in the Basilica of St. Peter’s was opened, then that of
St. John Lateran, then St. Mary Major - on New Year’s, and on Jan. 19,
the Door of the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls. This last
event, given its ecumenical character, has remained impressed in my
memory in a special way.
2. As the
Jubilee Year progressed, day by day the 20th century closes behind us
and the 21st century opens. According to the plans of Divine Providence,
I was allowed to live in the difficult century that is retreating into
the past, and now, in the year in which my life reaches 80 years (“octogesima
adveniens”), it is time to ask oneself if it is not the time to
repeat with the biblical Simeone ‘nunc dimittis’.
On May 13,
1981, the day of the attack on the Pope during the general audience in
St. Peter’s Square, Divine Providence saved me in a miraculous way from
death. The One Who is the Only Lord of life and death Himself prolonged
my life, in a certain way He gave it to me again. From that moment it
belonged to Him even more. I hope He will help me to recognize up to
what point I must continue this service to which I was called on Oct.
16, 1978. I ask him to call me back when He Himself wishes. “In life
and in death we belong to the Lord ... we are the Lord's.” (cf.
Romans 14,8). I also hope that, as long as I am called to fulfill the
Petrine service in the Church, the Mercy of God will give me the
necessary strength for this service.
3. As I do
every year during spiritual exercises, I read my testament from
6-III-1979. I continue to maintain the dispositions contained in this
text. What then, and even during successive spiritual exercises, has
been added constitutes a reflection of the difficult and tense general
situation which marked the ‘80s. From autumn of the year 1989, this
situation changed. The last decade of the century was free of the
previous tensions; that does not mean that it did not bring with it new
problems and difficulties. In a special way may Divine Providence be
praised for this, that the period of the so-called “cold war”
ended without violent nuclear conflict, the danger of which weighed on
the world in the preceding period.
4. Being
on the threshold of the third millennium “in medio Ecclesiae” I
wish once again to express gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great
gift of Vatican Council II, to which, together with the entire Church -
and above all the entire episcopacy - I feel indebted. I am convinced
that for a long time to come the new generations will draw upon the
riches that this Council of the 20th century gave us. As a bishop who
participated in this conciliar event from the first to the last day, I
wish to entrust this great patrimony to all those who are and who will
be called in the future to realize it. For my part I thank the eternal
Pastor Who allowed me to serve this very great cause during the course
of all the years of my pontificate.
“In
medio Ecclesiae” ... from the first years of my service as a bishop
- precisely thanks to the Council - I was able to experience the
fraternal communion of the Episcopacy. As a priest of the Archdiocese of
Krakow, I experienced the fraternal communion among priests - and the
Council opened a new dimension to this experience.
5. How
many people should I list! Probably the Lord God has called to Himself
the majority of them - as to those who are still on this side, may the
words of this testament recall them, everyone and everywhere, wherever
they are.
During the
more than 20 years that I am fulfilling the Petrine service “in medio
Ecclesiae” I have experienced the benevolence and even more the
fecund collaboration of so many cardinals, archbishops and bishops, so
many priests, so many consecrated persons - brothers and sisters - and,
lastly, so very, very many lay persons, within the Curia, in the
vicariate of the diocese of Rome, as well as outside these milieux.
How can I
not embrace with grateful memory all the bishops of the world whom I
have met in “ad limina Apostolorum”! How can I not recall so many
non-Catholic Christian brothers! And the rabbi of Rome and so many
representatives of non -Christian religions! And how many
representatives of the world of culture, science, politics, and of the
means of social communication!
6. As the
end of my life approaches I return with my memory to the beginning, to
my parents, to my brother, to the sister (I never knew because she died
before my birth), to the parish in Wadowice, where I was baptized, to
that city I love, to my peers, friends from elementary school, high
school and the university, up to the time of the occupation when I was a
worker, and then in the parish of Niegowic, then St. Florian’s in
Krakow, to the pastoral ministry of academics, to the milieu of ... to
all milieux ... to Krakow and to Rome ... to the people who were
entrusted to me in a special way by the Lord.
To all I
want to say just one thing: “May God reward you.”
“In
manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.”
A.D.
17.III.2000
