Today’s Sunday Pope Quote comes from a particularly beautiful section of Bl. John Paul II’ 1994 Letter to Families, one that is packed with rich reflection on childbearing, children, motherhood, and fatherhood. As we ponder during Respect Life month on the gift of life “in all its grandeur and beauty,” the late Holy Father reminds us here of the radical (in the eyes of the world) teaching of the Catholic Church: Every child is willed by God and wanted by Him, no exceptions. There is no such thing as an “unwanted” child. Because of this, parents are called to have an attitude of joyful receptivity toward the children, both actual and hoped-for, that are entrusted to them but are not their product or possession. Radical indeed!
Bl. Pope John Paul II: “God ‘willed’ man from the very beginning, and God ‘wills’ him in every act of conception and every human birth. God ‘wills’ man as a being similar to himself, as a person. This man, every man, is created by God ‘for his own sake‘. [GS 24] That is true of all persons, including those born with sicknesses or disabilities. Inscribed in the personal constitution of every human being is the will of God, who wills that man should be, in a certain sense, an end unto himself. God hands man over to himself, entrusting him both to his family and to society as their responsibility. Parents, in contemplating a new human being, are, or ought to be, fully aware that God ‘wills’ this individual ‘for his own sake’.”
– Letter to Families, no. 9 (italics original, bold added)
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