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Week IV
Liturgy of the Hours
Morning Prayer
It never gets old hearing Saint John Paul II utter the beginning of this beautiful psalm in English in today’s Morning Prayer.
We are featuring the video that was made of it, and thereby bringing you the opportunity to hear him again.
Saint John Paul II, pray for us this day and all days..
I
It is good to give thanks to the LORD,
to sing praise to your name, Most High,a
To proclaim your love at daybreak,
your faithfulness in the night,
With the ten-stringed harp,
with melody upon the lyre.b
For you make me jubilant, LORD, by your deeds;
at the works of your hands I shout for joy.
II
How great are your works, LORD!c
How profound your designs!
A senseless person cannot know this;
a fool cannot comprehend.
Though the wicked flourish like grassd
and all sinners thrive,
They are destined for eternal destruction;
but you, LORD, are forever on high.
10Indeed your enemies, LORD,
indeed your enemies shall perish;
all sinners shall be scattered.e
III
You have given me the strength of a wild ox;f
you have poured rich oil upon me.g
My eyes look with glee on my wicked enemies;
my ears shall hear what happens to my wicked foes.h
The just shall flourish like the palm tree,
shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon.i
Planted in the house of the LORD,
they shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall bear fruit even in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
To proclaim: “The LORD is just;
my rock, in whom there is no wrong.”j
- Pope John Paul II & Father Richard Kunst
- Pope John Paul II & Father Richard Kunst
- Pope John Paul II & Father Richard Kunst
- Bishop Robert Brom 1983-1989
- Photo With Signature of Pope John Paul II
- Photo With Signature of Pope John Paul II, Close up
- Autographed Photo of John Paul II Leaning Against His Staff
- Reliquary of Saint John Paul II in the cabinet
About the Autographed Photo of Pope John Paul II Featured Here:
An autographed photo of Pope John Paul II, dated December 3rd, 1983. This was received personally by Bishop Robert Brom, former Bishop of Duluth, MN, during an ad limina visit in 1983. Upon Father Kunst’s ordination, Bishop Brom gave it to him as a gift.
While a young seminarian at the North American College in Rome, Robert Brom had his first encounter with a young bishop from Krakow, Poland, Karol Wojtyla. The following story is his account of this remarkable bishop who became Pope John Paul II.
Bishop Robert Brom’s Encounter With the Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow,
The Future Pope John Paul II
John Paul II’s attention to each person is summed up in an encounter he had with San Diego’s Bishop Robert Brom.
Brom’s first meeting with the Pope occurred in 1963 during the second session of the Second Vatican Council. Brom was a seminarian at the North American College and Pope John Paul was the auxiliary bishop of Krakow. Brom and several classmates were leaving the Church of the Gesu after a visit there when some Polish seminarians with Bishop Wojtyla were entering. At that time Brom and his classmates briefly met the man who would thereafter become the Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow and the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years. Subsequently, Brom forgot all about the exchange.
In 1983 after his appointment as Bishop of Duluth, Bishop Brom in the context of his first Ad Limina Visit met Pope John Paul for what he thought was the first time. However, John Paul, looking into Brom’s face said, “I think we have met before.” Brom assured the Holy Father that they’d never met. “I believe we have,” insisted the Pope, but Brom was equally sure they had not.
Some days later, during the same Ad Limina Visit, the secretary to the Holy Father, then, Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz, now Cardinal, approached Bishop Brom to say, “Don’t argue with the Pope, he remembers when he met you.” “When?” Brom asked. “In November of 1963 outside the Church of the Gesu in Rome.” Brom’s memory refreshed, he asked Monsignor Dziwisz, “How can he do that?” to which Dziwisz explained that for John Paul to meet another person is to encounter God.
It was only years later in another Ad Limina Visit toward the end of the Pope’s life that John Paul brought up the subject again. One on one he asked Brom, “How many times have we met, and when was the first time?” to which Brom responded properly. John Paul slapped the desk and with a smile said, “Finally you remember!”
Papal Artifacts gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Bishop Robert Brom.