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          Vatican Information Service
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      07.IV.2005
      Fifteenth Year  - N.67

      SUMMARY:

      - JOHN PAUL II'S SPIRITUAL TESTAMENT

      ___________________________________________________________

      JOHN PAUL II'S SPIRITUAL TESTAMENT

      VATICAN CITY, APR 7, 2005 (VIS) - Following is the text of the
spiritual testament of John Paul II, which was released today in an
Italian translation of the original Polish. The translation from
Italian into English has been done by VIS:

   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. Mt 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 re-read 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 Fr. 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 (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 difficul
t 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 (my) Easter.
I also hope that He makes (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.

   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.

   JPII

      Spiritual exercise of the Jubilee Year 2000 (12-18.III)
      (for my testament)

   1. When, on October 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 October 16, 1978. As I write these words,
the Jubilee Year 2000 is already a reality. The night of December
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 January 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 October 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. Rm 14,8). I also hope that,
as long as I am called to fulfil 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 Eighties.
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" visits! 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
      .../JOHN PAUL II:TESTAMENT/...    VIS 050407 (2100)

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