John Paul II: Playwright, Poet, and Pope
By Anna Laughery
Pope Saint John Paul II is known and loved for many reasons. He is remembered for writing his groundbreaking Theology of the Body addresses and for calling all young people to greatness through his famous words: “Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” He also is known for being the most widely traveled pope, traveling 670,878 miles (or 2.8 times around the world) during his papacy. Though these are all incredible examples of his evangelistic spirit and love for the Lord and His Gospel, most people are unaware of his artistic side. His appreciation for beauty through the arts colored the entirety of his papacy and allowed him to be the pope and saint who helped the Church engage with the modern world.
Even though he was one of the most brilliant Catholic theologians and philosophers of the last century, he knew that there were limits to the power of these disciplines. There are certain dimensions of the human experience that require multiple modes of expression. For Karol Wojtyla, the young man who would eventually become the beloved Saint John Paul II, these modes were poetry and plays. Wojtyla believed that artistic expression and engagement is not an add on to Christian life but, in fact, is central to it. This belief was made evident throughout his own life for he was deeply affected by beauty through arts. He writes in his Letter to Artists that he felt a deep connection to all artists “by experiences reaching far back in time and which have indelibly marked my life.” His experiences as an artist permanently affected his soul and through his example we can learn how art and beauty can change our souls as well.
The role of the actor
In his book Gift and Mystery, John Paul II notes that in his youth he was “completely absorbed by a passion for literature, especially dramatic literature, and for the theater.” He was part of an underground theater, called the Rhapsodic Theater, during the Nazi occupation of Poland, which was started by his friend and mentor Mieczysław Kotlarczyk. This theater was a theater of the word, with the emphasis not on props, effects, or costumes, but on dialogue and the power of the spoken word.
For Wojtyla, the attraction of the theater came from the spoken word’s ability to draw both the performer and the listener deeper into the human experience and closer to the eternal Word, Jesus Christ. John Paul II continues his reflection on his artistic past in Gift and Mystery by saying that “the mystery of language brings us back to the inscrutable mystery of God himself.” He attempted to draw back the curtain of this inscrutable mystery through his acting.
George Weigel, in his biography of John Paul II titled Witness to Hope, notes that in the Rhapsodic Theater the task of the actor “had a function not unlike a priest: to open up, through the materials of this world, the realm of transcendent truth.” It was this function that drew young Wojtyla to the arts and, though he eventually realized that his true vocation was not in acting, the desire to reveal the transcendent remained with him for his whole life.
The role of the playwright
Along with acting, Wojtyla also tested his creative ability as a playwright. He viewed creativity as a participation in God’s creative act. In his Letter to Artists, he wrote “With loving regard, the divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power.” Throughout all his plays, he endeavored to participate in God’s creativity by drawing his audience toward the transcendent. He constantly connected the truths of the faith, such as Scriptural stories, to everyday life. For example, his second play, titled Job, retold the story of the Old Testament character on the stage of Nazi occupied Poland, connecting the role of suffering in the transcendence of God’s plan with the concrete suffering of the Polish people.
His most famous play, titled The Jeweler’s Shop, has since been made into a movie and is a favorite of many. He didn’t care if his plays were ever published or performed; in fact before his papacy none of his plays were performed, and only one was published. For Wojtyla, it was about exploring the human condition and illuminating how our experiences can point us towards God. In his introduction to the 1980 translation of The Jeweler’s Shop, one translator of Wojtyla’s work, Boleslaw Taborski, eloquently puts into words the power of Wojtyla’s plays. He writes that in The Jeweler’s Shop “out of the chaos created by our human loves, hates and weaknesses, he (Wojtyla) gently points the way in the right direction.”
The role of the poet
Karol Wojtyla’s poetry is perhaps the least popular of his artistic endeavors, but it holds incredible depth and wisdom. Many of his poems focus on the small details of both stories from Scripture and from the daily life of an average person, such as Mary’s amazement at the face of the child Jesus or the task of a car factory worker. Though his poetry does not lend itself to immediate and obvious interpretation, it does a remarkable job of revealing the subjectivity, or internal workings, of the human heart and mind. It embodies the sentiment which he communicates in his Letter to Artists, that beauty “is an invitation to savor life and to dream of the future.” Through his poetry we can find reason to savor the little things in life and begin to see how every experience can point us back to God.
Our role?
Though not all of us are called to be actors, playwrights and poets, we are all called to engage with the world through beauty. Karol Wojtyla viewed his poetry and plays as a way of “being present” to reality. By reading the works of Wojtyla and other great artists, we can become more present to the reality which we face. In a world that desperately needs empathy and a deeper understanding of the experience of others, Wojtyla’s example is one to imitate. Through the penetrating words of the artist Karol Wojtyla, may we find empathy, understanding, self-knowledge, and with them a pure and wholehearted love of the Lord. Let these words from his poem titled “Melancholic” serve as a first step:
And to be more with Him,
more with Him, not merely with oneself.
Push aside the terror of things to be done,
may a simple act be enough.
For further reading of John Paul II’s artistic works begin with:
The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II
