BECOME WHO YOU ARE

Reflection by James Dubyoski

This is a perfect week to be tying Saint Pope John Paul II to the Easter season because he looks at the details of everything in life and recognizes that we can see the connection to the redeeming work of Christ. 

Before this week, we’ve gone through Lent and we have struggled and labored to sacrifice and the reality is that He has taken all that struggle, difficulty, and challenge already up into Himself and put it to death. The beautiful thing about Lent leading into Divine Mercy and the whole Easter season, is in allowing the Lenten struggle that we’ve been through to be part of that reflection. We realize that we bring that humanness, which is rooted in our body and soul unity, into reflection on the grace of His mercy, resurrection, and defeating of all that seemingly defeats us. 

The timeliness of JPII and the gift of his life has a lot to do with the grace of Our Lady, Divine Mercy and even the beautiful year we’re in, the Year of Saint Joseph. If we just think phenomenologically and think of what he [Joseph] did, in raising Jesus and then not being present at the end of His life, it lends itself again to the kinds of sufferings that are going on around us in the world, society, fatherhood, and family as well. I personally am where I am because of the intercession of Saint Joseph in my life. 

And as we look more deeply at the Divine Mercy Chaplet, we can see the gift of the intentions of Jesus as it takes us into all different levels of prayer for the people around us and all the different aspects of our life. By reflecting with these intentions for all sinners and all mankind, but especially all sinners…

for priest and religious…

devout faithful... 

those who do not yet know God...

those separated from the church…

those who are humble like children…

those who venerate the Divine Mercy in a particular way…

and those who are in purgatory and those who are lukewarm… It covers all the challenges that we face in our lives and relationships that we have and it draws us to be more humanly thoughtful about the need for that mercy, to become definitively committed to being that vessel. We worked with that in Lent and we had those things opened up to us and as we pray through Divine Mercy in the Easter season, it allows us to continue to deepen that transforming grace in taking root. 

This is a season for us to be lifted up in our faith, in rejoicing and fellowship and bringing those deeply rooted human realities that we’ve gotten in touch with in Lent, and not be afraid of them because we’ve seen the resurrection. We’ve seen that He is alive and we first and foremost carry that with us. 

John Paul II gave constant repetition to all people and especially young people, to be not afraid. It was in a sense his clarion call. It is rooted in the appreciation for the intercession of our Lady and his knowledge and love of the Lord’s Divine Mercy as he himself was greatly affected by both Saint Faustina and Saint Maximilian Kolbe in a personal way.

So no matter how we’re feeling or how difficult things are or whatever track it takes us down in terms of suffering and death and the absurdity of life around us, whatever it may be, it’s taking us there in His body in a way that whatever we’re encountering can be a source of immediate joy even in the midst of sorrow of bringing his own suffering to bear on that knowing that it leads to resurrected life not only for us but for those in need around us. 

The key is recognizing that 10 years ago and where we are now in our faith in Christ, there is no difference on one level and yet there’s all the difference. 

Just like Jesus’ own life, He had to be and was given to be, faithful to the Father’s will through all that came. We carry with us the fact that we’re in constant metanoia (conversion) and constantly falling short of that. As we look back on however many years and we wake up we realize we’re still in that. When I look back I see, in a way, failure to completely give myself to his Holy will and I recognize in seeing that failure that in all of that has been His work of bringing me closer. 10 years down the road I’ve become more aware of moments, thoughts, temptations of unfaithfulness in a way that screams out His good work in us. It screams out His faithfulness because despite my unfaithfulness, He has brought me here and He is still doing it. 

Yet, I am Dismas on the cross beside Jesus. When I suffer and I die, I’m not suffering in all righteousness as He was, but that’s where I want to be and that’s where I’m going to be because He is faithful. Like Saint Faustina said, the unique gift I have now as I did 10 years ago, is my misery. It’s being willing to, in my heart, say as Dismas did, “Lord I’m suffering because I deserve it, remember me as You come into Your Kingdom”.

It’s kind of like that story that Sister Gaudia tells about Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, who in his last days sought out a priest who had come to the camp and he had sent away, because he knew that he would remember him. No other priest would hear his confession. So he sent for this priest who heard his confession. He received communion and he wrote a public letter to the Polish people, grieving over his part. Like Dismas and Höss, nobody is beyond hope.

And so, as we enter into this joyous Easter season, we do so with the immediate joy of knowing that He is still at work. We do so knowing that through the intercession of the saints, and especially Pope Saint John Paul II, we are united to the greater body and connected in unity to God and each other. I’ll leave you with some of John Paul’s own words to inspire you to become who you are in Christ. 

‘We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus conquered sin and passed through His own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery.”

“Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that God is with you.”