The Legacy of John Paul II

Triptych - a set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together.

 In an earlier post I spoke about the impact of John Paul II on my life.  I now want to speak about what I believe the legacy of John Paul II is.

John Paul II was a lot of things to a lot of people and he did so much for the world that I could never do full justice to his legacy in a short post.  Instead I want to focus on three things which I see as a kind of triptych of John Paul II and give a clue about how he saw the world and the future of the Catholic Church.

The first panel of this triptych is the Theology of the Body.  Over the first five years of his pontificate, John Paul II delivered a series of Wednesday Audience addresses on the meaning of human embodiment.  He wanted to provide the Church and the world with a new understanding of what it means to be human and humanity's place in the universe.

The second panel in the triptych is World Youth Day.  In 1984 John Paul II hosted the first ever World Youth Day in Rome.  The goal of this event was to gather the youth of the world together for prayer and worship in the hopes that young people could meet each other and come to realize that they are not alone in their faith.  This initiative was meant to show the true Catholic, or universal, nature of the Church.  Since it's inception the World Youth Days have been hosted annual on Palm Sunday in every diocese of the world and an International World Youth Day has been held every 2-3 years at a particular location.  Since 1984 the International World Youth Day has been hosted by numerous nations on almost every continent.  The International World Youth Day is one of the largest events taking place around the world and brings together more people then the World Cup of Soccer and the Olympics.

The third panel of the triptych is the New Evangelization.  In 1989 John Paul II asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to write a new Catechism of the Catholic Church so that all Catholics could have a normative guide to Catholic beliefs.  When the new Catechism was promulgated John Paul II called for a New Evangelization.  The goal of the New Evangelization is to bring the Catholic faith to the modern world using modern language and technology.

Seen together the three panels of the triptych of John Paul II reveal the mission of John Paul II and give us insight into his vision for the Church.  If we put these things together we will see that John Paul II believed that the Church needs to reach out to the youth and allow young people to use their gifts and talents to spread the Gospel of Christ in a New Evangelization through the use of a new understanding of Catholic teaching; the Theology of the Body. Once we see this we understand why John Paul II had such hope for the future.  Young people are the future and the future is now.  We need to engage the young people and one powerful way to do that is to tell them about the meaning and purpose of their lives using the Theology of the Body.  Once these young people are engaged they will use their knowledge and skill with modern technology, including social media, to bring the Gospel to the world.

I am very excited about the future of the Church and of the world.  When young people become engaged in their faith there will be an explosion in the Church.  I hope I live to see the Catholic Church restored to the fullness of her splendour and beauty.

God Bless You!!