A Luminous Silence

From 1950 to 1966, Father Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, wrote poetry under the pseudonym "Andrzej Jawien." His literary career covers the time period from four years after his ordination as a priest up to the year before he became a Cardinal. (Source: here)

Her Amazement at her Only Child

Light piercing, gradually, everyday events;
a woman's eyes, hands
used to them since childhood.
Then brightness flared, too huge for simple days,
and hands clasped when the words lost their space.

In that little town, my son, where they knew us together,
you called me mother; but no one had eyes to see
the astounding events as they took place day by day.
Your life became the life of the poor
in your wish to be with them through the work of your hands.

I knew: the light that lingered in ordinary things,
like a spark sheltered under the skin of our days --
the light was you;
it did not come from me.

And I had more of you in that luminous silence
than I had of you as the fruit of my body, my blood.
-Karol Wojtyla, 1950


Pope John Paul II, 1920 - 2005