How the loss of a mother, ‘soul of the home,’ shaped the heart of a pope …
Pope John Paul the Great, as so many call him, touched the lives of countless souls and gifted the Church a rich wisdom, particularly regarding the feminine genius. And the source of that wisdom may be traced back to a humble home in Wadowice, Poland.
Young Karol Wojtyła was only 8 years old when his mother, Emilia Kaczorowska, died at the age of 45 on April 13, 1929 — just one month before her son’s ninth birthday on May 18.
In his definitive biography, Witness to Hope, George Weigel says the tragic event bore in the future pope an “uncommon maturity.”
But a little-known poem written by Karol in his late teens, 10 years later, sheds light on the impact his late mother had on him. It was translated from Polish in 2004, part of a wider collection of poems written by the Polish Pope.
In the poem, entitled On Your White Tomb, he wrote:
Over this, your white grave
the flowers of life in white –
so many years without you –
how many have passed out of sight?
Over this your white grave
covered for
