Archive for June, 2010

IS POPE JOHN PAUL TRULY A SAINT?

What do we know about Pope John Paul?  He was born on May 18, 1920 and passed into the Loving arms of Jesus April 2, 2005. He was the third child of  Emilia and Karol Wojtylas.   He was blessed to live in a loving family until his mom died less than one month before his sacrament of First Communion when he was 9 years old.   When he was 12 his beloved older brother dies of scarlet fever and his father passes away when he was 21 years old. He feels abandoned by the world but his faith gives him comfort.

            Karol  loved the theater and performing until the university closed because of World War 11.   During the war he started an underground theater group, worked in a quarry and decided to follow his heart and become a priest in November of 1946.    He lead people in their faith and went through the ranks during world war 11 and the communismic take over.

            On October 16, 1978, white smoke came from the Sistine Chapel and Karol became Pope John Paul 11.   His faith, charisma, prayer and God, lead him to become the most popular pope of our time.  One that united the masses, brought the youth to God and went to countries that no other pope had been to, Ghana, Asia, Gabon, Panama, the U. S. A. , Bangkok and India.   He did things that no other pope had done.  

Children were his favorite people.   So when a 9 year old Polish boy who was unable to walk because of a kidney ailment and in a wheelchair, was brought to John Paul’s tomb in the grottoes of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I personally believe a Miracle happened.  After praying at the tomb, he told his parents, “I want to walk. ”  He got up out of the wheelchair and started to walk and was healthy. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz who was the personal secretary of John Paul and who now heads his old diocese of Krakow in Poland said he knew the family and attested to the boy’s illness.

Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a French nun, had Parkinson’s the same ailment as Pope John Paul and she felt a great kinship to him. This horrible disease had robbed her of her spirit, made walking difficult, her body ached and her hands trembled so badly that she could not keep her job supervising a maternity ward in the town of Puyricard.   She was completely exhausted because of her disease.   When she went to her mother superior to give up her job, the mother suggested she write the late Pope’s name on a piece of paper and pray to him. When she tried to write it was nothing more than a scrawl.

What ever happened that night changed her life forever.   “It was as if I heard a voice say to me, Take your pen and write. ”  When she wrote it was very legible and the next morning she jumped out of bed and her disease had vanished.   This mystery has been confirmed by a local medical team. (People Magazine, April 16, 2007).  

April 2, Sister Simon-Pierre recounted her story to the Vatican and they are investigating the stories to verify her recovery-miracle.

April 2, another story came to light about a 26 year old that was shot in the head execution-style during a mugging  five weeks prior.    The chaplain at the hospital is crediting Pope John Paul’s intercession in this story.   The doctors told the Aebly’s family that this was a non-survivable wound.    Father Art Snedeker gave the young man a rosary that had been blessed by Pope John Paul and he was released from the hospital 2 days before the 4th anniversary of John Paul’s death.   He can walk and talk as if he had never been shot.

Father Snedeker stated that the Pope promised him that he would always pray for patients at that hospital and the Pope blessed a dozen rosaries for special patients.   The first night that Jory the 26 year old arrived, Father Snedeker performed the sacrament of the sick.   He asked Pope John Paul to pray for Jory and protect him and gave Jory the blessed rosary.  

“I stand before you today and can say, to my mind, Jory is a miracle” Snedeker said.   As Jory addressed the media before his release he thanked the police and hospital staff.   He attributed his recovery to the power of prayer.

Miracles?  I believe they are, I believe that Pope John Paul was so full of Faith that God gave him his own “phone line” to heaven.   Is he a saint, read about his live and he is already a saint with out these miracles.   He survived World War 11, Hitler, and communism.   He traveled, was shot, and lived with Parkinson for many years.   Yes, I believe he is already a Saint just from his life and when you add the miracles after his death, this makes him a Super Saint and in today’s world we need a Super Saint to pray for us and the world.

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