By DONALD DeMARCO
These are, indeed, times that try men’s souls. Our spirits are weighed down by the COVID-19 pandemic together with the horrifying spectacle of our cities being vandalized, churches being ravaged, statues being desecrated, stores being looted, bad Supreme Court decisions being delivered, and sporting events being closed to spectators.
Keeping one’s spirits up is most challenging. My thoughts turn to St. John Paul II and what he had to endure, even before he assumed the papacy. Both his mother and father died when he was young. His sister Olga died a few days after she was born. His brother, Edmund, who had obtained a degree in medicine, died at age 26 while serving his internship. John Paul had to deal with attacks on his native Poland by Nazis and Communists. How does one remain intact under such “bludgeonings of chance”?
John Paul drew courage from his faith in God and therefore did not allow difficulties to stand in the way of his destiny. One important factor that we can learn from him is his marvelous sense of humor. The funny bone has a mysterious connection with both the heart and the soul. And it can lift us up when we need a lift.
John Paul’s favorite joke, it is said, centers on the only two possible solutions to the Eastern European crisis, of which one is realistic, the other, miraculous. In the realistic solution, Our Lady of Czestochowa suddenly appears with all the angels and saints and inspires an immediate resolution to the crisis. In the miraculous solution, all the nations cooperate.
When Time selected John Paul II as “Man of the Year” for 1994, the Pontiff thanked the magazine’s delegation at a private audience in Rome, but added, somewhat mischievously, “I see that in the past, you have given this honor to Lech Walesa and to Pope John XXIII — but also to Stalin and Hitler.” Upon being assured that he was on Time’s “good list,” not its bad one, he replied, gratified, but still playful, “I hope I always remain on the good list.”
Tad Szulc, in his biography of the Pope, says of his subject: “In public, he likes to joke, often in a slightly self-deprecatory fashion, in whatever language he happens to be using at the time, and enjoys the crowd’s laughing, applauding responses. It may be the actor in him.” On November 11, 1993, after addressing a group of workers in Rome, he slipped on a newly installed piece of carpeting in St. Peter’s Basilica and fell several steps. Though in pain, he said to the crowd on his way out of the hall: “Sono caduto ma non sono scaduto” (I have fallen, but I have not been demoted.).
The Pope’s artificial hip joint that was surgically implanted to compensate for his damaged femur, was giving him some problems. At a synod in October 1994, he looked at the assembled bishops and said, citing the comment Galileo allegedly muttered, “Eppur si muove” (And yet it moves). Sometimes, when asked how he feels, he would reply, “Neck down, not so good.”
In October of 1995, the Pope spoke to a gathering in New York’s Central Park about one of his favorite Polish Christmas carols, which he began spontaneously to sing. The large audience roared its approval. John Paul, cocking his head to one side and assuming an expression of surprise, remarked, “And to think — you don’t even know Polish.”
During a flight from Brussels to Rome (May 21, 1983), a journalist asked His Holiness about the risk of exposing himself to public criticism. He responded by saying, “Even the Pope can learn something.” En route to Alaska, the Pope’s plane crossed the International Date Line, thereby gaining a calendar day. With a glint of mischief in his eye, John Paul said to his party, “Now we must decide what to do with the extra day we have been given.”
Once (August 16, 1972), as Cardinal Wojtyla, he was climbing a mountain when he noticed the darkening skies and heard thunder in the distance. He joked to his guides, “I know three madmen: the first is myself, the second is my secretary, and the third is waiting for us at the summit.” A journalist once alerted the Pope of an imminent soccer game to be played between Poland and Italy, and then asked, “Which team will you root for?” John Paul responded wisely and humorously: “It would be better for me to keep out of sight.”
While in Krakow in June of 1979, and being kept up until midnight by an enthusiastic crowd, the Holy Father said to the cheering throng: “You are asking for a word or two, so here they are — Good night.” During that same pilgrimage to Poland, a horde of youngsters kept shouting Sto lat, sto lat (May you live to be a hundred) to the point when John Paul jokingly asked, “How can the Pope live to be a hundred when you shout him down? Will you let me speak?” After order was restored, he simply said, “I love you all.”
While in Chicago in October 1979, tens of thousands of Polish-Americans continually serenaded him with Sto lat. Finally, John Paul said to them, playfully, “If we keep this up, they’re going to think it’s the Polish national anthem.” To a gathering at Castelgandolfo (April 17, 1995), John Paul answered repeated shouts of “Long live the Pope,” by saying, “Long live everyone.”
Someone once remarked, by way of voicing disapproval of Wojtyla’s affection for skiing, that no Italian cardinals were skiers. “That’s strange,” Cardinal Wojtyla said innocently, “in Poland, forty percent of our cardinals are skiers.” His detractor pointedly commented that there were only two Polish Cardinals. “Oh yes,” replied Wojtyla, “but in Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski counts for sixty percent.”
One of John Paul’s biographers, and a close personal friend, John Szostak, has pointed out that John Paul has no objection to Polish jokes as long as they are not cruel. Szostak compiled a list of new Polish jokes for John Paul that was being circulated on the occasion of his elevation to the papacy. One was about the first thing a new Polish Pope would do upon moving in to the Vatican — order wallpaper for the Sistine Chapel.
Exercising is good for the body. Exercising the funny bone, as St. John Paul II has taught us, is good for the soul.
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