Joseph M. Mauceri is a medical doctor with the soul of a poet. Like Pope John Paul II he is also a Christian humanist aspiring to an exalted level of mystical prayer. As a disciple of the Holy Father, Mauceri has achieved that privileged state of “one mind in two bodies.” This book, then, is a probe of human sensibilities as a pathway to meditation and high prayer.

Mauceri’s main source for the pope’s poetry is Jerzy Peterkiewicz’s 1982 Random House translation, The Place Within. Random House has also put out two other editions of the pope’s poetry translated by Peterkiewicz: i.e., Karol Wojtyla: Collected Poems (1982) and Easter Vigil & Other Poems (1979). Most, if not all of the poems quoted by Mauceri, may be found in any of these three books.

A word should be said about the quality of Peterkiewicz’s translation. Born in Poland, our translator was educated in Warsaw and at St. Andrew’s and King’s College, London. He is now professor of Polish literature at the University of London. Translating Polish poetry into English is no easy matter. Polish verse is essentially syllabic, whereas English verse is stressed. In addition,Wojtyla has stylistic qualities peculiarly his own. As a result, a special committee associated with the Vatican library had to approve the translation before it could be published. Peterkiewicz provides an instructive introduction to these matters in his edition of Wojtyla’s Collected Poems. In short, this high-calibre translation provides a good entree to the pope’s mind-style.

When Mauceri reflects on the pope’s poetry, he works under the conviction that Wojtyla “is not from Poland, he is from Galilee.” Mauceri views the pope in resonance with the mind and spirit of Christ, so he uses the religious sensibilities of Wojtyla as a vehicle to understand our humanity in the light of Christ. In this catalytic light of Christ even our “just anger” can be transformed by love into forgiveness and hope. Mauceri summarizes his own religious thought and the authentic course of human life by quoting John Paul II: “Profess faith, bestow love, impart hope.” The biblical injunction, “Do not be afraid,” the harbinger of God’s Good News to come, has been the constant message of the pope to humanity since the first day of his election.

In quite recent years we have seen the Holy Father growing old, projecting an image of Christ on the cross. Mauceri presents a significant reflection on this situation which distills much of the meaning in depth of Wojtyla’s faith-poetry:

There is a natural weariness that should come to us as we grow older. Usually it comes in relation to a growing sense of detachment from the ordinary turmoil of the day. But the weariness the Spirit brings is both deeper and richer in that it is not a detachment from the suffering of others, that we engage in prayer and service. It is weariness that wants to see God in “joyful hope.” In this regard the Pope’s poems are not simply a message, really, but the very journey itself. They are not a commentary on anger and love, or forgiveness and mercy, but a complete immersion in the journey within the form of Christ. This is why the poems of Veronica and the woman at the well are greater than the others, simply because there is a quality of mercy which is greater than forgiveness. For which is the greater mercy of God, to give of His Divine Abundance or to see His Christ bend low so that the hands of a sorrowful daughter may comfort her suffering Lord? At that moment all of creation is turned upside down and the creator receives the mercy of his creature. But then, just as with the fleeting moments of [Veronica’s] veil, there is the weariness that follows, the weariness of fleetingly experiencing the Divine and then having to turn back to the cares of the day filled yet empty. But now there is a reason to go on because mercifulness is greater than forgiveness. Merciful is Jesus, and merciful is His Bride the Church, and merciful we must be as His almoners of mercy . . . even to weariness.

Mauceri not only displays his faith-insights into Wojtyla’s mind but he also illumines the importance of our will and actions, in John Paul II’s existential personalism. These ideas are latent in the pope’s poetry and later developed in his philosophical writings and encyclicals, especially The Acting Person and Redemptor Hominis. Mauceri reveals the deeply contemplative prayer life of Wojtyla and it’s formative influence on the human will. The will is the hinge of faith, and by our acts of will, the decisions for faith, we “touch the land of deepest meaning.” As the pope says of this act of will in Man’s thoughts:

“You must stop, look deeper, still deeper, until nothing deflects the soul from the deepermost deep.”

Towards the end of his book Mauceri breaks into something of an ecstatic paean, while contemplating the pope’s poem, Song of the Inexhaustible Son:

Could the woman at the well ever look again at her reflected self in water and not see “Him?”Yet, greater than His gaze is His flesh for us: “Oh, miracle, wonder of wonders, that I with my humanity should shield God while His love shields me with His martyrdom.” Wojtyla’s great spirituality is drawn from his deep contemplation of that reality. This is why he confidently expresses hope while also speaking of his own fears without contradiction. “I beg you: shield the side which sinks to the dark. I beg you: discover the side which transfigures my sight . . . Then a miracle will be, a transformation. You will become me, and I — eucharistic — you.”

For anyone interested in penetrating the thought of John Paul II, especially as a path to contemplative prayer, this book is highly recommended for meditation.