Today, I came across some really fascinating photographs of Pope John Paul II. In many ways, for myself, he has been a more powerful figure through images, and the entire visual media, than through the written words he left behind. From the beginning, I found his prose incredibly dense and impenetrable. In photographs, he is suddenly humanized. I was especially attracted to pictures of John Paul before he became the Holy Father. As a young priest, and Archbishop, he exhibited a completely relaxed form of masculinity as the intellectual, scholar, and athlete. He is perfectly comfortable in his own skin; there are no masks or pretensions. My favorite shot: one from his Episcopal Consecration in 1958. There is something rough-hewn about him, he looks solid and rock-like, with the bearing and countenance of a solider, there is nothing wispy there, nothing of the effete and pampered cleric (the type of man St. Francis of Assisi would have disliked;) but there is a strength and a gentleness - that speaks of his Polish ancestry; of a people fortified and hardened by their long history of struggles and a resolute reliance upon Faith. In John Paul, we also see a supreme beauty and softness in his outward display of Holy Grace and inconspicuous humility. He is the model for all men: he reminds me of St. Joseph. For all great men of Faith, share this same quality: Fortitude and Obedience.