I, like so many of us, watched the television as I got word that the Holy Father was seriously ill and had received the "last rites"1 What struck me immediately was the large number of people that came to Rome, to the Vatican and stood or knelt in prayer. I had been in that very plaza many years ago, and so there was a feeling that I was there again.
When the word came that Pope John Paul II had died, there was a sense of completion that I rarely feel when hearing of a death. The Holy Father had completed the task for which he had been called -- he had served the people of God with every bit of strength he had. He had been a tireless worker in the vineyard. In his unceasing call to follow the Lord, to be faithful to the teachings of the Church, to be, in fact, Catholic, he was doing what Jesus calls all of us to do.
In his funeral homily, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of the three passages from Scripture that seemed to appropriate to the life and times of the man born Karol Wojtyla. But that deals with someone far away, someone removed from us, someone who was a head of state, the head of the Church. What of the person who touched us, who spoke to us, who comforted us, who cherished us?
Most of us never had a chance to sit down to dinner with the pope, to be in his presence, or even to see him in real life -- and yet he touched us and made us feel like we were friends. He did that because he genuinely cared about us, he prayed for us, he loved us. An Orthodox priest told me that Pope John Paul II "was the real thing." and that sums it up pretty nicely. The Holy Father was, in the end, our father who wanted only the best for us.
He was unyielding in teaching the Truth, in reaching out to those who were estranged from the Church, and to the youth who are the Church. It was in his very humanity that his prayerfulness stood out. It was in his suffering and weakness that his strength stood out. It was in his refusal to yield one iota of Truth that his courage stood out.
When he died, an icon died. He was not a remote symbol, but a part of the very fabric of our lives as Catholics. We will not see his like again.
If you would like to comment on this, you may send
mail to me here. Deacon Ed