Quotes & Sayings About John Paul Ii

To believe in Jesus is to accept what he says, even when it runs contrary to what others are saying. It means rejecting the lure of sin, however attractive it may be, in order to set out on the difficult path of the Gospel virtues. — Pope John Paul II

Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it. — Pope John Paul II

On my knees, I beg of you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the path of peace. Those who resort to violence always claim that only violence brings about change. You must know there is a political, peaceful way to justice. — Pope John Paul II

All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture. — Pope John Paul II

From Mary we learn to surrender to God's Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God! — Pope John Paul II

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. — Pope John Paul II

In the newborn child is realized the common good of the family. — Pope John Paul II

Young people are threatened ... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire. — Pope John Paul II

My desire is for the young people of the entire world to come closer to Mary. She is the bearer of an indelible youthfulness and beauty that never wanes. May young people have increasing confidence in her and may they entrust their lives to her. — Pope John Paul II

That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn. — Pope John Paul II

The person - especially a woman - may be disillusioned by the fact that over time a man's affection turns out to be only, so to speak, a cover for desire or even for an explicit will to use. Both a woman and a man may be disillusioned by the fact that the values attributed to the beloved person turn out to be fiction. Because of the dissonance between the ideal and the reality, affective love is sometimes not only extinguished but even transformed into affective hatred. — Pope John Paul II

Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. — Pope John Paul II

Rediscover the Rosary in the light of scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy, and in the context of your daily lives. — Pope John Paul II

The Church has a special duty to safeguard and strengthen the sacredness of the Eucharist. In our pluralistic and often deliberately secularized society, the living faith of the Christian community - a faith always aware of its rights vis-a-vis those who do not share the faith - ensures respect for this sacredness — Pope John Paul II

The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being. — Pope John Paul II

When a parliamentary or social majority decrees that it is legal, at least under certain conditions, to kill unborn human life, is it not really making a tyrannical decision with regard to the weakest and most defenseless of human beings? ... While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which were it prohibited would cause more serious harm, it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals even if they are the majority of the members of society an offense against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life. — Pope John Paul II

We face a fundamental question which can be described as both ethical and ecological. How can accelerated development be prevented from turning against man? How can one prevent disasters that destroy the environment and threaten all forms of life, and how can the negative consequences that have already occurred be remedied? — Pope John Paul II

What is the difference between "creator" and "craftsman"? The one who creates bestows being itself, he brings something out of nothing - ex nihilo sui et subiecti, as the Latin puts it - and this, in the strict sense, is a mode of operation which belongs to the Almighty alone. The craftsman, by contrast, uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaning. — Pope John Paul II

Interdependence must be transformed into solidarity based upon the principle that the goods of creation are meant for all. That which human industry produces through the processing of raw materials with the contribution of work must serve equally for the good of all. — Pope John Paul II

Over the last 2,000 years, 10,000 saints have been named, among them, 78 popes. At the time of his death, Pope John Paul II had the distinction of naming 482 saints, more than all of his predecessors combined. — Chris Matthews

Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person also extends to the rest of creation, which is called to join man in praising God. — Pope John Paul II

Prayer can truly change your life. For it turns your attention away from yourself and directs your mind and your heart toward the Lord. If we look only at ourselves, with our own limitations and sins, we quickly give way to sadness and discouragement. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, then our hearts are filled with hope, our minds are washed n the light of truth, and we come to know the fullness of the Gospel with all is promise and life. — Pope John Paul II

In the Vatican square, they were selling lollipops. You could buy lollipops about that big with the face of Pope John Paul II on them. You could buy a Pope John Paul II's face lollipop. I bought about ten.
And I just thought ... In the light of his death a few months later, I wondered whether sales of those lollipops went up or whether they went down. Did good Catholics think, 'Ah, the Pope's just died. It would now seem inappropriate ... to lick a sugar effigy of his face.'
Or did they go, 'Ah, the Pope's just died. But what better way ... to commemorate his life than by licking a sugar effigy of his face? — Stewart Lee

A good leader sees everything, overlooks a great deal, and corrects a little. — Pope John Paul II

All human life-from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages-is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God. Nothing surpasses the greatness or dignity of a human person ... If a person's right to life is violated at the moment in which he is first conceived in his mother's womb, an indirect blow is struck also at the whole moral order. — Pope John Paul II

Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. — Pope John Paul II

Chastity by no means signifies rejection of human sexuality or lack of esteem for it: rather it signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full realization. — Pope John Paul II

Around the globe, millions more are mourning the death and celebrating the life of Pope John Paul II . Could any other world leader have drawn so many people to one place? — Chris Matthews

Pope John Paul II not only visited Nigeria twice but stood by the country in its fight against dictatorship and injustice. — Olusegun Obasanjo

Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. — Pope John Paul II

What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless. — Pope John Paul II

Catholic education aims not only to communicate facts but also to transmit a coherent, comprehensive vision of life, in the conviction that the truths contained in that vision liberate students in the most profound meaning of human freedom. — Pope John Paul II

Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love. — Pope John Paul II

The Mother of Christ, who stands at the very center of this mystery ... is given as mother to every single individual and all mankind. — Pope John Paul II

Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here ... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life — Pope John Paul II

The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels the great need of your assistance, your prayers, your sacrifice, and he most humbly asks this of you. — Pope John Paul II

Bless, O Lord of the centuries and the millennia, the daily work by which men and women provide bread for themselves and their loved ones. We also offer to your fatherly hands the toil and sacrifices associated with work, in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed human work from the yoke of sin and restored it to its original dignity. — Pope John Paul II

The saints have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult moments in the Church's history. — Pope John Paul II

In this oasis of quiet, before the wonderful spectacle of nature, one easily experiences how profitable silence is, a good that today is ever more rare ... In reality, only in silence does man succeed in hearing in the depth of his conscience the voice of God, which really makes him free. And vacations can help to rediscover and cultivate this indispensable interior dimension of human life. — Pope John Paul II

The frenetic pace of modern life can lead to an obscuring or even a loss of what is truly human ... Perhaps more than in other periods of history, our time is in need of that genius which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance. — Pope John Paul II

The sacraments infuse holiness into the terrain of man's humanity: they penetrate the soul and body, the femininity and masculinity of the personal subject, with the power of holiness. — Pope John Paul II

Those in society who are in charge of schools must never forget that the parents have been appointed by God himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that their right is completely inalienable. — Pope John Paul II

Holidays and vacations can help to balance activity with contemplation, haste with more natural rhythms, noise with the heralding silence of peace. — Pope John Paul II

Those who saw Pope John Paul II either in person or through the mass media glimpsed a man who millions of Catholics believe may be one of the greatest popes in the history of the church. — Chris Matthews

The truth is not always the same as the majority decision. — Pope John Paul II

Humanity, its dignity and its balance, will depend at every moment and on every place on the globe,on who man is for woman and who woman is for man. — Pope John Paul II

We Christians joyfully recognize the religious values we have in common with Islam. I would like to repeat what I said to young Muslims some years ago in Casablanca: 'We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection. — Pope John Paul II

As believers, how can we fail to see that abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are a terrible rejection of God's gift of life and love? And as believers, how can we fail to feel the duty to surround the sick and those in distress with the warmth of our affection and the support that will help them always to embrace life? — Pope John Paul II

Evangelization through the Eucharist, in the Eucharist, and from the Eucharist - these are three inseparable aspects of how the Church lives the mystery of Christ and fulfills her mission of communicating it to all people ... In addition to the preaching of the message, the consummation of evangelization consists in the building up of the Church, which has no real existence without the sacramental life culminating in the Blessed Eucharist — Pope John Paul II

Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colors, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look and listen. — Pope John Paul II

For by his incarnation the Son of God united himself in a certain way with every man. He labored with human hands ... and loved with a human heart. Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one of us ... — Pope John Paul II

Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, can fully find himself only through a sincere gift of himself. — Pope John Paul II

It's better to cry than be angry, because anger hurts others while tears flow silently through the soul and cleans the heart. — Pope John Paul II

None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. — Pope John Paul II

May you experience the truth that he, Christ, looks upon you with love. — Pope John Paul II

A man shows himself a true disciple of Christ by carrying the cross in his turn every day in the activity that he is called to perform. — Pope John Paul II

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ. — Pope John Paul II

There is a growing threat to the environment, to the vegetation, animals, water and air. Sacred Scripture hands us the image of Cain who rejects his responsibility: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The Bible shows the human person as his brother's keeper and the guardian of creation which has been entrusted to him. — Pope John Paul II

Look, I can surely say by now that I've got the antibodies to communism inside me. But when I think of consumer society, with all its tragedies, I wonder which of the two systems is better. — Pope John Paul II

Sacred scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expressed itself in terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. Any other teaching about the origin and makeup of the universe is so alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven. — Pope John Paul II

The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place. — Pope John Paul II

God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations: We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and, asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant. — Pope John Paul II

Although I have lived through much darkness, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young ... Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son. — Pope John Paul II

Prayer finds its source in God's holiness and it is at the same time our response to this holiness. — Pope John Paul II

It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman. — Pope John Paul II

The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish. — Pope John Paul II

May the death penalty, an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished throughout the world. — Pope John Paul II

The goal and target of our life is He, the Christ who awaits us
each one singly and altogether
to lead us across the boundaries of time to the eternal embrace of the God who loves us. — Pope John Paul II

For us Catholics, John Paul II will be remembered as a traveling Pope ... and we should also remember he preached world peace. When the United States invaded Iraq, for example, John Paul II said it was an illegal and immoral act. — Hugo Chavez

Christ is the measure of every age. — Pope John Paul II

The desire for knowledge is so great and it works in such a way that the human heart, despite its experience of insurmountable limitation, yearns for the infinite riches which lie beyond, knowing that there is to be found the satisfying answer to every question as yet unanswered. — Pope John Paul II

Each individual in fact has moral responsibility for the acts which he personally performs; no one can be exempted from this responsibility, and on the basis of it everyone will be judged by God himself. — Pope John Paul II

The hope is that papal calls for a New Pentecost, which go back to St. John XXIII, and papal calls for a New Evangelization, which go back to Vatican II and especially to St. John Paul II, can come together. Pope Francis' vision is to bring together the reality of a New Pentecost with the urgency of a New Evangelization. — Ralph Martin

The film industry has become a universal medium exercising a profound influence on the development of people's attitudes and choices, and possessing a remarkable ability to influence public opinion and culture across all social and political frontiers. — Pope John Paul II

Those who devote themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture should always remember that the various hermeneutical approaches have their own philosophical underpinnings, which need to be carefully evaluated before they are applied to the sacred texts. — Pope John Paul II

Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church. — Pope John Paul II

How beautiful is the family that recites the Rosary every evening. — Pope John Paul II

There is no need to be dismayed if love sometimes follows torturous ways.
Grace has the power to make straight the paths of human love. — Pope John Paul II

You made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. In this creative restlessness beats and pulsates what is most deeply human - the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience. — Pope John Paul II

Of course God's way of speaking to us is different from our way, but he does speak to us, and his words are intelligible; they are interior factors closely linked to the unremitting work of our conscience. — Saint John Paul II

Work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons — Pope John Paul II

Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it. — Pope John Paul II

The world designed by God cannot be a world in which some hoard immoderate wealth in their hands, while others suffer from destitution and poverty, and die of hunger. Love must inspire justice and the struggle for justice — Pope John Paul II

The body, in fact, and it alone is capable of making visible that which is invisible; the spiritual and the divine. — Pope John Paul II

Much of the violence that humanity suffers in our times is rooted inmisunderstanding as well as in the rejection of the values and identityof foreign cultures. Tourism improves relationships between individualsand peoples; when they are cordial, respectful, and based on solidarity theyconstitute, as it were, an open door to peace and harmonious coexistence — Pope John Paul II

God comes to us in the things we know best and cane verify most easily, the things of our everyday life. — Pope John Paul II

Benedict's spending down his energy was a function of his fighting against the Space/Information Age's relentless pressure on the concept of hierarchy, the restoration of which he had, following John Paul II, made a central part of the program that has come to be known as the reform of the reform. — Eugene Kennedy

The Lord has given you a heart open to great horizons; do not be afraid to commit your life completely to the service of Christ and His Gospel! Listen to Him as He says again today: 'The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. — Pope John Paul II

We must be honest here, and not defensive; the issues are now too grave and too urgent. Our inability to see our personal failures is paralleled by our inability to see our institutional and national sins too. It is the identical and same pattern of addiction and denial. Thank God that Pope John Paul II introduced into our vocabulary words like "structural sin" and "institutional evil." It was not even part of the conversation in most of Christian history up to now, as we exclusively concentrated on "personal" sins. The three sources of evil were traditionally called "the world, the flesh, and the devil." We so concentrated on the flesh that we let the world and "the devil" get off scot-free.8 — Richard Rohr

Christ remains primary in your life only when he enjoys the first place in your mind and heart. Thus you must continuously unite yourself to him in prayer ... Without prayer there can be no joy, no hope, no peace. For prayer is what keeps us in touch with Christ. — Pope John Paul II

The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn. — Pope John Paul II

The world [is] tired of ideology [and] is opening itself to the truth. The time has come when the splendor of this truth has begun anew to illuminate the darkness of human existence. — Pope John Paul II

Whenever a person is the object of your activity, remember that you may not treat that person as only the means to an end, as in instrument, but must allow for the fact that he or she, too, has or at least should have, distinct personal ends. — Pope John Paul II

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

Take heart young people! Christ is calling you and the world awaits you! Remember the Kingdom of God needs your generous and complete dedication. — Pope John Paul II

The last person to be beatified by Pope John Paul II was Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 2003. — Chris Matthews

The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. — Pope John Paul II

Another name for peace is development. — Pope John Paul II

Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray. — Pope John Paul II

Prayer joined to sacrifice constitutes the most powerful force in human history. — Pope John Paul II