Follow Me: A Pilgrimage with St. John Paul II

I first heard of Pope John Paul II's death from a news reporter outside the St. Louis Cathedral, while visiting Saint Louis University — the school where I would soon spend the next four years.  I was with my late friend, John Cunningham, whose death I've written about before. We hadn't been following the news, so the announcement came unexpectedly. The reporter asked us for our thoughts. I don't remember what I said, but I remember what I heard —not audibly, but interiorly, like a voice rising from the depths: 

Follow me. 

It was the call to discipleship. And I wasn't ready. 

At that time, I was spiritually numb—intentionally distant from Christ and his Church. I was angry, particularly over my experience with the Legionnaires of Christ. Two years earlier, I had been a student at their minor seminary in New Hampshire, leaving only after my parents intervened. I had lost around 50 pounds in just a few months. The stress was unbearable. There were good brothers and priests there. Yet it was not for me. Leaving felt like a relief, but also like failure. It was not so much that I wanted to continue in the seminary, but that I was worried about letting people down. Even after I left, I sought the Legionnaires’ validation. When it did not come, I felt rejected - not just by them, but by God. I developed a visceral reaction to anything associated with the Legionaries. 

My unease included Pope John Paul II. I unfairly connected him to them—mostly due to the photos of him blessing their founder, Fr. Marcial Marciel, and the constant reminders of his support and the telling of his life story. So when I heard of his death, I felt unsettled. But then I saw the statue of John Paul II by the Cathedral, and something in me softened. Peace emerged. He was more than the associations I had projected onto him. 

At the time, I had chosen to study philosophy at Saint Louis University - a subject I had first explored at the seminary. Like the young Karol Wojtyla, I was drawn to the love of wisdom. But I struggled to relate academic philosophy to my actual experience. Someone mentioned that John Paul II was a philosopher of experience. So I began reading his work, and something clicked. All the pieces of my life–joy, sorrow, repentance, desire, the ache to love and be loved–found illumination in his thought. 

His writings became a wellspring of renewal for me. 

For my senior thesis, I focused on the "personalistic norm" in Love and Responsibility. But the professor best suited to advise me was on sabbatical. The Jesuit I worked with instead wasn't fond of John Paul II, and he assigned me Husserl's Cartesian Meditations to read. The work was not exactly helpful for what I wanted to say. Accordingly, the thesis wasn't very good, but the research and writing process pushed me deeper into Wojtyla's thought. During my defense, a professor suggested that to make the kind of claims I was aiming for, I really needed  to study theology. He recommended the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C.

When I looked up the Institute, I dismissed it at first. The place seemed like a hub of sentimental, non-academic theology–too focused on marriage and family, which I did not yet take seriously enough. I failed to see what Wojtyla saw: that marriage and family are icons of being itself, of the mystery of God. But I was also afraid of what people would think if my resume had "marriage and family" in the name of my institution of graduate studies. 

Eventually, after my first stint working at Word on Fire, I finally went to study at the Institute. There I met my wife, a native of Poland. We were married in her homeland and honeymooned in Krakow–encountering John Paul II again, but in a new light. A year later, in 2014, we visited Pilsudski (Victory) Square in Warsaw for John Paul II's canonization. It was here where, in 1979, a large crowd of Poles cried out, "We want God!"—during John Paul II's homily, which helped shake the foundations of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe. 

Looking back, that year feels like a turning point—not only for me, but for the culture in the West. 

Social commentator Aaron Renn identifies 2014 as the start of the "Negative World," where Christian morality began to be viewed negatively, and identifying as a Christian became a social and professional liability. Even the Church felt the shift., For example, professors who continued John Paul II's moral theology were removed from the very institute he founded. One of them, Professor Stanislaw Grygiel, who had been a student and close friend of John Paul II, met with my wife and me over tomato juice (tomato juice!) in Krakow. With heartbreak, he told us of the threat to John Paul II's legacy and vision within the Church he had loved and served. 

That same year, Cardinal Blaise Cupich succeeded Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, a man who had deeply admired John Paul II. I was working at Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago at the time, and I had an inside look at the how things were going. The times were a ‘changing.

Happily, I now sense another turning may be underway. A spiritual one. And no, I do not mean MAGA but a holy longing that is discernible amongst the youth who are well acquainted with the suffocating air of nihilism.

Deep wounds among the faithful remain. The trauma of abuse, the anger, the disillusionment–they're still with us. But I think many are beginning to realize: outside the Church, there is not much nourishment for the soul. Or at least it is lacking. 

Many people are waking up to the words of St. Peter: "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life?" (John 6:68) We have experienced the void, and now we desire the fullness.  

It's time again to hear–and respond to–the same message I heard years ago: 

Follow me. 

Cardinal Ratzinger repeated these words throughout his homily at John Paul II's funeral. He understood that the Pope's life was a continual response to that call. 

Now I find myself living in Krakow, where John Paul II's presence lingers in stone and story. His image is everywhere. Each day I walk past Wawel Hill, past the archbishop's residence on Franciszkanska Street where he once lived. A large portrait of him fills the window, the same window where he greeted crowds with warmth and humor. "It's late,” he told the people. “The Pope has to go to bed." Such images put me at ease. 

My wife and I hope to guide others through this city someday–to show them this "Second Rome," as it has been known since the 16th century. And maybe, just maybe, as people pass these places and see the image of our late sainted pope, they too will hear the voice that called to me two decades ago. 

Follow me.