"When I preached the retreat in the Vatican, it was to Paul VI and his collaborators. During the preparatory phase, there had been a problem. At the beginning of February 1976, I was telephoned by Monsignor Wladyslaw Rubin, who told me that the Pontiff would like me to preach the retreat in March. I had barely three weeks to prepare my texts and translate them. The title that I late gave to those meditations was: 'Sign of Contradiction'. This had not been proposed to me, but it emerged at the end as a kind of synthesis of what I had wanted to say. ...
"I remember the days dedicated to preparing the talks, twenty of them, which I had to choose and put together all by myself. In order to find the necessary peace and quiet, I went to stay with the Gray Ursulines at Jaszczurowka. Until noon I wrote the meditations, then in the afternoon I went skiing, and in the evening I continued writing."
(John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way, pp 174-175)
