Pope John Paul II
COMPLETE TEXT OF POPE'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
Text of Pope's Last Will and Testament
English translation of the official Vatican Italian translation of the text of Pope John Paul II's last will and testament, which was originally written in Polish with successive additions. Dates have been written according to European convention, which makes "6.3.1979" represent March 3, 1979.
The document begins with a Latin phrase that reads, "I am completely in Your hands." It follows with a citation from the New Testament.
The testament of 6.3.1979
Totus Tuus ego sum
In the Name of the Holiest Trinity. Amen.
"Keep watch, because you do not know which day when the Lord will
come" - These words remind me of the final call, which will come the
moment that the Lord will choose. I desire to follow Him and desire
that all that is part of my earthly life shall prepare me for this
moment. I do not know when it will come, but, like all else, this
moment too I place into the hands of the Mother of My Master: Totus
Tuus. In the same maternal hands I place All those with whom my life
and vocation are bound. Into these Hands I leave above all the Church,
and also my Nation and all humanity. I thank everyone. To everyone I
ask forgiveness. I also ask prayers, so that the Mercy of God will loom
greater than my weakness and unworthiness.
During spiritual exercises I reflected upon the testament of the Holy
Father Paul VI. This study has led me to write the present testament.
I leave no property behind me of which it is necessary to dispose.
Regarding those items of daily use of which I made use, I ask that they
be distributed as may appear opportune. My personal notes are to be
burned. I ask that Don Stanislaw oversees this and thank him for the
collaboration and help so prolonged over the years and so
comprehensive. All other thanks, instead, I leave in my heart before
God Himself, because it is difficult to express them.
Regarding the funeral, I repeat the same disposition given by the Holy
Father Paul VI: Burial in the bare earth, not in a tomb, 13.3.92.
Apud Dominum misericordia et copiosa apud Eum redemptio John Paul pp.II
Rome 6.3.1979 Following my death I ask for Holy Masses and prayers
5.3.1990
---
I express the deepest faith that, despite all my weakness, the Lord will
accord me every necessary grace to face, according to His will, whatever
task, trial and suffering that will be demanded of His servant, during
the course of my life. I also have faith that never will it be
permitted that, through my behavior: by words, actions or omissions, I
betray my obligations in this holy seat of Peter.
---
24.II - 1.III.1980 Also during these spiritual exercises I have
reflected upon the truth of the Priesthood of Christ in the perspective
of that Crossing which is for each one of us the moment of death. In
taking leave of this world -- to be born into the other, the future
world, eloquent sign is for us the Resurrection of Christ.
I therefore read the copy of my testament of the last year, it also made
during spiritual exercises - I compared it with the testament of my
great Predecessor and Father Paul VI, with that sublime witness to the
death of a Christian and of a pope - and I renewed in myself
consciousness of the questions, to which refers the copy of 6.III.1979,
prepared by me (in a rather provisional way).
Today I desire to add to it only this, that each one of us must keep in
mind the prospect of death. And must be ready to present himself before
the Lord and Judge - and contemporaneously Redeemer and Father. Then I
too can take this into consideration continuously, entrusting that
decisive moment to the Mother of Christ and of the Church - to the
Mother of my hope.
The times in which we live are indescribably difficult and troubled.
Difficult and tense has become the life of the Church as well,
characteristic trial of these times - as much for the Faithful, as much
as for the Pastors. In some Countries (as, e.g. in that one about
which I was reading during the spiritual exercises), the Church finds
itself in a period of persecution that is not inferior to those of the
first centuries; on the contrary, the degree of cruelty and hatred is
greater still. Sanguis martyrum - semen christianorum. And beyond this
- so many people disappear innocently, even in this Country, in which we
live ...
I desire once more to entrust myself totally to the mercy of the Lord.
He himself will decide when and how I must finish my earthly life and
pastoral ministry. In life and in death Totus Tuus through the
Immaculate. Accepting this death already, I hope that Christ will give
me grace for my final passage, which is Easter. I hope too that it
shall be made useful also for this important cause in which I am trying
to serve: the salvation of men, the safeguarding of the human family and
of all the nations and the peoples (among these I refer in particular to
my earthly Country), useful for the persons who in a special way have
entrusted to me for the questions of the Church, for the glory of God
himself.
I do not desire to add anything to that which I wrote a year ago - only
express this readiness and at the same time this faith, to which the
present spiritual exercises prepared me.
John Paul II
---
Totus Tuus ego sum
5.III.1982 In the course of the spiritual exercises this year I have
read (several times) the text of the testament of 6.III.1979
Notwithstanding that even now it is to be considered as provisional (not
definitive), I leave it in its presently existing form. I change (for
now) nothing, nor do I add anything, as regards the arrangements
contained within it.
The attempt on my life of 13.V.1981 has in some way confirmed the
exactness of the words written in the period of the spiritual exercises
of 1980 (24.II - 1.III).
All the more profoundly I feel myself totally in the Hands of God - and
I remain continually at the disposition of my Lord, entrusting myself to
Him and to His Immaculate Mother (Totus Tuus).
John Paul pp. II
---
5.III.1982 In connection with the final phrase of my testament of
6.III.1979 ("About the place/the place, that is, of the funeral/may the
College of Cardinals and Compatriots") - I clarify what I had in mind:
the metropolitan of Krakow or the General Council of the Bishops of
Poland - I ask in the meantime the College of Cardinals to satisfy to
the extent possible the eventual questions of the aforementioned.
---
1.III.1985 (during spiritual exercises).
Again - concerning the expression "College of Cardinals and the
Compatriots": the "College of Cardinals" has no obligation to consult
"the Compatriots" on this question; it can, in any case, do so, if for
some reason it considers it right to do so.
JPII
---
The spiritual exercises of the Jubilee year 2000 (12-18.III)
(VATICAN'S NOTATION: "for the will")
1. When, on the day of Oct. 16, 1978, the conclave of cardinals chose
John Paul II, the Primate of Poland Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski told me:
"The task of the new pope will be to introduce the Church into the
Third Millennium." I do not know if I am repeating the phrase exactly,
but at least such was the sense of what I heard then. It was said by
the Man who has passed into history as the Primate of the Millennium. A
great Primate. I was witness to the mission, to His total entrusting of
himself. To His struggles; to His victory. "Victory, when it will
come, will be a victory through Maria" - these, the words of his
Predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond, the Primate of the Millennium was
wont to repeat.
In this way I was to some degree prepared for the task which was placed
before me on Oct. 16, 1978. As I write these words, the Jubilee Year
of 2000 is already a reality, and under way. The night of Dec. 24,
1999, the symbolic Door of the Great Jubilee of the Basilica of St.
Peter was opened, and successively that of St. John Lateran, then St.
Mary Major's on New Year's Eve; and on Jan. 19, the Door of the
Basilica of St. Paul "Outside the Walls." This latter event, given
its ecumenical character, has remained particularly engraved in memory.
2. To the degree that the Jubilee Year 2000 goes forward, closing
behind us day by day is the 20th century, while the 21st century opens.
In accordance with the designs of Providence, it was granted to me to
live during the difficult century that is passing, and now, in the year
during which my age reaches 80 years ("octogesima adveniens"), it is
necessary to ask if it is not the time to repeat the words of the
Biblical Simeon, "Nunc dimittis." On May 13, 1981, the day of the
attempt upon the life of the Pope during the general audience in St.
Peter's Square, Divine Providence saved me from death in a miraculous
way. He who is the sole Savior of life and of death, Himself prolonged
this life, and in a certain way gave it to me anew. From this moment it
belongs to Him all the more. I hope that He will help me to recognize
the time until when I must continue this service, to which he called me
on the day of Oct. 16, 1978. I ask (Him) to call me when He wants.
"In life and in death we belong to the Lord ... we are of the Lord"
(cf Romans 14, 8). I hope too that throughout the time given me to
carry out the service of Peter in the Church, the Mercy of God will lend
me the necessary strength for this service.
3. As I do every year during spiritual exercises I read my testament
from 6-III-1979. I continue to maintain the dispositions contained in
this text. What then, and even during successive spiritual exercises,
has been added constitutes a reflection of the difficult and tense
general situation which marked the '80s. From autumn of the year 1989
this situation changed. The last decade of the century was free of the
previous tensions; that does not mean that it did not bring with it new
problems and difficulties. In a special way may Divine Providence be
praised for this, that the period of the so-called "cold war" ended
without violent nuclear conflict, the danger of which weighed on the
world in the preceding period.
4. Being on the threshold of the third millennium "in medio
Ecclesiae" I wish once again to express gratitude to the Holy Spirit
for the great gift of Vatican Council II, to which, together with the
entire Church - and above all the entire episcopacy - I feel indebted.
I am convinced that for a long time to come the new generations will
draw upon the riches that this Council of the 20th century gave us. As
a bishop who participated in this conciliar event from the first to the
last day, I wish to entrust this great patrimony to all those who are
and who will be called in the future to realize it. For my part I thank
the eternal Pastor Who allowed me to serve this very great cause during
the course of all the years of my pontificate.
"In medio Ecclesiae" ... from the first years of my service as a
bishop - precisely thanks to the Council - I was able to experience the
fraternal communion of the Episcopacy. As a priest of the Archdiocese
of Krakow I experienced the fraternal communion among priests - and the
Council opened a new dimension to this experience.
5. How many people should I list! Probably the Lord God has called to
Himself the majority of them - as to those who are still on this side,
may the words of this testament recall them, everyone and everywhere,
wherever they are.
During the more than 20 years that I am fulfilling the Petrine service
"in medio Ecclesiae" I have experienced the benevolence and even more
the fecund collaboration of so many cardinals, archbishops and bishops,
so many priests, so many consecrated persons - brothers and sisters -
and, lastly, so very, very many lay persons, within the Curia, in the
vicariate of the diocese of Rome, as well as outside these milieux.
How can I not embrace with grateful memory all the bishops of the world
whom I have met in "ad limina Apostolorum" visits! How can I not
recall so many non-Catholic Christian brothers! And the rabbi of Rome
and so many representatives of non-Christian religions! And how many
representatives of the world of culture, science, politics, and of the
means of social communication!
6. As the end of my life approaches I return with my memory to the
beginning, to my parents, to my brother, to the sister (I never knew
because she died before my birth), to the parish in Wadowice, where I
was baptized, to that city I love, to my peers, friends from elementary
school, high school and the university, up to the time of the occupation
when I was a worker, and then in the parish of Niegowic, then St.
Florian's in Krakow, to the pastoral ministry of academics, to the
milieu of ... to all milieux ... to Krakow and to Rome ... to the
people who were entrusted to me in a special way by the Lord.
To all I want to say just one thing: "May God reward you."
"In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum."
A.D. 17.III.2000
JOHN PAUL II: TESTAMENT
