“Totus Tuus ego sum et omnia mea Tua sunt. Accipio Te in mea omnia! (I am all yours, and all that I have is yours. May You be my guide in everything!)”. Through this heartfelt prayer addressed to Mary, the Mother of God, which concluded his homily at a Mass he celebrated in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major on Friday, 8 December 1978, feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Pope John Paul II wanted to place his Petrine ministry under her constant motherly intercession and instruction. Moreover, his papal motto ‘Totus tuus,’ (I am all yours) was the pastoral legacy he left for all those who wish to serve the Lord in the priesthood and consecrated life.
Totus tuus is a powerful biblical expression portraying the total surrender of one’s self to God’s will. This significantly loving response to God’s calling can be witnessed in the life and mission of various biblical personages, culminating of course in the ‘Fiat’ of Jesus, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done” (Matt 26, 42), “Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God” (Heb 10, 7), and that of Mary, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1, 38). Pope John Paul II passionately embraced this vertical yes to God wherever Divine Providence led him. An interesting testimony, also included in the decree written by the Congregation for Saints’ Causes regarding his beatification, clearly draws attention to the fact that for the Holy Father personal prayer was a priority, even on his apostolic visits. For instance, his seventh apostolic trip in his native country Poland was inevitably exhausting. Yet, during this visit, the Bishop of Rome dedicated sufficient time to “contemplate the face of Christ, his dying face and the face of the risen One”. The subsequent testimony, excerpted from the decree composed by the Congregation for Saints’ Causes regarding the beatification of the Servant of God John Paul II, gives ample evidence of both the simplicity and profundity of the Pontiff’s prayer.
“[His seventh Apostolic Voyage to Poland] lasted for 13 days, with 22 stops in the programme, from the north to the south of the country. A programme well beyond the physical capabilities of the Pope. On one of those days, there was to be − according to the programme – the blessing of the Sanctuary of Lichen, the Eucharist in Bydgoszcz, then a meeting with the university people, the liturgy of the Sacred Heart, in link with the beatification of Fr Frelichowski in another city, in Torun, then back to Lichen for the overnight stay. A more than busy day! Thus, after dinner, the papal entourage went to bed immediately. But the Pope just locked himself in the chapel for a long, a very long moment of prayer. There remained only three of us: Bishop Chrapek in charge of the planning for the episcopate; myself, as ‘assistant,’ and the famous Camillo Cibin, head of Vatican security. At last the Pope came out of the chapel to go to his bedroom. Cibin said to me: ‘Father Andrea, bring me a chair. But one that is hard, made of wood, not a sofa, two cups of coffee, strong coffee, and an apple.’ All this was to help him stay up all night by the door of the Pope’s bedroom, which was not totally closed, to make sure that the Pope − not only tired but also advanced in years – was breathing normally or he needed assistance. The personal holiness of the Pope was something over and above the esteem he enjoyed among his closest collaborators, and that was quite significant.”
His smile and natural warmth flowed from a heart full of God’s mercy and compassion. As many have attested, when Pope Wojtyla used to speak to someone he would forget everything and just concentrate on what the other person was saying. He never took any individual for granted. On the contrary, he displayed his totus tuus ethos of unconditional love in his daily interpersonal encounters. His horizontal yes was always said and lived with boundless generosity of time and energy, particularly in his dealings with his closest collaborators, as this personal memory of Cardinal Angelo Amato proves
“He chose me as secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I was ordained bishop by him on 6 January 2003. There were 12 of us, the last to receive Episcopal ordination from Pope Wojtyla. I met him every month, as secretary of the Doctrine of the Faith, as requested by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, who was my direct superior. And John Paul II listened for a long time, he always listened. The thing that struck me most was his capacity to listen. We spoke, he listened. And only later, when we saw one another again at lunch, would he make his observations. His desire to fully understand was evident.”
Pope John Paul II lived up to his totus tuus pontifical motto on the many trips he made. In fact, he visited 129 countries, almost every country in the world, logged more than 1.1 million km (725,000 miles) and attracted large crowds on his travels. A case in point was the 1995 Manila World Youth Day which approximately five million people attended. When it comes to the number of beatifications and canonisations, Pope Wojtyla beatified and canonized more people than many of his predecessors combined in five centuries of papal history. As a matter of fact, by October 2004 he had beatified 1,340 people and canonised 483 saints The Polish Pope delivered more than 2,000 powerful public addresses, each of which drew tens, and sometimes hundreds, of thousands of people. His exceptional rapport with non-Catholics, non-Christians and the people of good will unveiled his unconditional love for Jesus.
Although by the age of 20 Karol Wojtyla had lost all the people he loved, at the age of 84 Pope John Paul II had hosts of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons, fulfilling Jesus’ promise: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10, 29-30). His Totus Tuus way of being and acting earned him not only this immense family but also beatification (and hopefully eventual canonization) today, 1 May.
Blessed Totus Tuus. Pray for us!
Mario Attard OFM Cap