The Good Country
A Lenten Story with Pope John Paul II
Eyes on Christ | Vol. 20, Issue 12 | April 1, 2026 | Holy Week
Welcome to Eyes on Christ, a writing ministry exploring culture, technology, and the everyday stories that shape our faith. This is my twentieth year writing Eyes on Christ. All glory to God.
This is the fourth story in our Lenten series: She who was thrice named Grace. Each installment pairs a fictional short story with historical companions, photographs, documents, and music. #1: Grace at the font - Companion: St. Thomas the Apostle | #2: Grace at the altar - Companion: Hilaire Belloc | #3 Grace in the Far Country - Companion: St. Augustine of Hippo.
The Good Country
Companion: Pope John Paul II
The salvation of the individual, as well as of human and Christian society itself, is intimately connected with the health and well-being of marriage and the family. Pope John Paul II
We are entering the Triduum soon. The holiest days of the year. The days on which everything that matters was decided.
Holy Thursday is the night of the washing of feet, the institution of the Eucharist, the agony in the garden. Good Friday is the cross, the stripping bare, the death. Between them, they ask of us something very simple and very hard: to stay. To not look away. To remain present to the suffering that is also, impossibly, the salvation.
Grace stays this week. For the first time in a long time, she stays.
Her companion this week is Pope John Paul II — Karol Wojtyła, the Polish pope who had watched from the inside what happens to a civilization when its deepest covenants are unmade. He had seen it under Nazism and under Communism —