The Memorial of Saint John Paul II
For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, May be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, And to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, To him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous! Praise is fitting for the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Sing praises to him with the harp of ten strings.
For the Lord's word is right. All his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the loving kindness of the Lord.
The counsel of the Lord stands fast forever, The thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.
Behold, the Lord's eye is on those who fear him, On those who hope in his loving kindness, To deliver their soul from death, To keep them alive in famine.
"I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled. But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, no, but rather division. For from now on, there will be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
We celebrate today the memorial of Saint John Paul II, the Polish pope who led the Church from 1978 until his death in 2005 — a man whose life was a living argument that holiness is possible in the modern world, and that love is stronger than fear.
Now consider the fire Jesus speaks of in Luke's Gospel. This isn't destruction — it's the fire of purification, the kind that burns away what is false so that what is true can breathe. John Paul II knew something about this. He lived under Nazi occupation, under Soviet communism, and later under the slow erosion of a culture that had lost its center. And yet he kept saying, *be not afraid*. That phrase wasn't optimism. It was fire.
Paul's prayer in Ephesians gives us the interior architecture of what John Paul II embodied: being rooted and grounded in love, strengthened in the inner person, filled with a fullness that exceeds anything we could manufacture on our own. Notice how Paul doesn't pray for easier circumstances — he prays for deeper roots. The storms aren't removed; we're made strong enough to stand in them.
The division Jesus mentions can unsettle us. But underneath this hard saying is something clarifying: genuine love of truth will sometimes cost us comfort. Not every family tension is holy, but some disagreements are the inevitable friction of a soul that refuses to go along with what it knows is wrong. John Paul II understood that. He spent his whole life choosing the harder, truer thing.
As we move through this day, here are some questions worth sitting with:
Where in your life are you avoiding a necessary fire — a hard conversation, an honest reckoning, a commitment that costs something real?
What would it look like to be *rooted* rather than merely *resolved* — to act from love rather than from willpower alone?
And what is one thing you are genuinely afraid of right now, to which the words *be not afraid* might actually apply?