Co-Worker Introduced John Paul II to His Priestly Vocation

Co-Worker Introduced John Paul II to His Priestly Vocation January 13, 2013

God can use any of us to deliver His message.


A case in point is the charming story of how John Paul II first received his call to the priesthood from a co-worker. This story of how God uses each of us to His purpose is a good one for us to ponder in this Year of Faith. How does God use you in your daily life to bring His light into the world?

The CNA/EWTN News story describing what happened reads in part:

Rome, Italy, Jan 11, 2013 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One of the closest collaborators of Blessed John Paul II, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, recounted in Rome a little-known story about the late pontiff’s vocation to the priesthood.

Cardinal Re served at the Vatican Secretary of State and later prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

On Jan. 9 at the Conciliaziones Auditorium – during the presentation of the recital “The Pope and the Poet,” inspired by the life of Karol Wojtyla – he recalled an unpublished episode from the life of the late pontiff.

The cardinal told reporters that in 1939, young Karol Wojtyla had to quit college and work at a quarry to support himself and keep from being deported to Germany.

“There he worked with a miner who set explosives in the mines, and one day the miner told him, ‘I think you would make a great priest.’”

“John Paul II told us that until that moment he had never thought of being a priest. He said, that man who I worked with already saw me as a priest,” Cardinal Re said. (Read more here.)

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