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                                              Intro Mary Garden

Pope Reveals Mary's Place In His Life


Excerpt from Zenit press release of 10/14/00 (http://www.zenit.org/)


ROME, OCT. 13, 2000 (ZENIT.org).- It was during the dark years of
the Nazi occupation of Poland that a young Karol Wojtyla discovered
the role of Mary in his life.

John Paul II spoke about his youth today during an address to
participants of the 8th International Mariological Colloquium,
taking place in Rome.

The meeting was the occasion of an official petition to the Pope to
have him declare Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort (1673-1716) a
doctor of the Church.

Grignon de Montfort is one of the classical writers of Christian
spirituality, from whom the Holy Father borrowed the motto "Totus
Tuus" ("All Yours").

During the Nazi occupation, when he worked in Krakow's Solvay
factory, the future Pope "read and reread many times and with great
spiritual profit" an ascetic work of Grignon de Montfort.

It led the young seminarian to understand that Mary's presence in
the spiritual life of a Christian does not compete with the person
of Christ, but stems from him and is at his service.

The Holy Father recalled: "Then I understood that I could not
exclude the Lord's Mother from my life without neglecting the will
of God-Trinity, who willed to begin and fulfill the great mysteries
of the history of salvation with the responsible and faithful
collaboration of the humble handmaid of Nazareth."

Thus, John Paul II emphasized how Grignon de Montfort invites the
faithful to live a spirituality that encourages giving oneself
consciously to Christ and, through him, to the Holy Spirit and the
Father.

The Pope explained that he chose as the motto of his episcopate and
pontificate the words "All Yours," as an act of entrustment to
Mary.

"In repeating every day 'Totus tuus,' and living in harmony with
her," he said, "one can attain to the experience of the Father in
limitless confidence and love, to docility to the Holy Spirit, and
to the transformation of self according to the image of Christ."

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