Pope John Paul II

When I read over the itinerary and saw that we were going to Pope John Paull II’s house, museum and then a Polish mass, I was genuinely nervous. Although I do believe in God, I was not raised in a religious household or with any religion at all. So, going into this I was concerned that I would feel uncomfortable or not really interested at all. To my surprise, the tour of Pope John Paul II’s house was one of the things during this trip that I enjoyed the most. When we got to Pope John Paul II’s house/museum I was really impressed by how beautiful and thought out they had made it. The first part of the guided tour was all about his life as a child and what he enjoyed doing. He was born and lived in Wadowice, Poland which at the time the Jewish Population was 1/5 before the War. Something that really stuck out to me was that we learned he had many Jewish friends and even prayed with them as a little boy in the synagogues despite being and having high catholic faith because he just wasn’t afraid. I think that shows that there was Jewish Catholic relationships, especially before the war. In 2000, he even visited the Holy Land of the Jews and prayed with them, just like they do. I also really admired how he decided to become a Priest because all his family had passed and he didn’t want to be alone, so becoming one brought him closer to not only God but people thus giving him a family. Going through the museum really taught me a lot of things I didn’t know, about not only the Pope but about religion and what it can mean to some people. We also got to walk through the apartment that he grew up in, I think how they incorporated that into the tour and museum allows the tourists and visitors to understand the Pope even more. I think the part of the exhibit that stuck out to me the most was when we learned about the assassination attempt taken on him. On May 13^th, 1981, a Turkish Terrorist attempted to kill the Pope in Saint Peter’s Square. Something that fascinated me was that the Pope believed that the only reason he wasn’t killed was because he had picked up a little girl, so instead the shooter aimed for his stomach and not his. The little girl saved him. The museum also has the real gun used in the assassination attempt in the floor of that part of the museum. The Pope shows how much his faith really means to him by going to the prison of the man who tried to kill him, and forgave him. Forgiving someone who did something bad to you is extremely difficult but the fact that he was able to is admiring.