Saturday, April 02, 2005
FAVORITE PICTURES
There are a lot of pictures of John Paul II floating around the web right now, among them this one with Mehmet Ali Agca, which is the image that to me most expresses what the Pontificate of John Paul II was about.
He was not a follower. He blazed his own trail, listened to his own counsel. He was a unique man among men. He forgave. Forgiveness will be part of the legacy of this pontificate, and this was his first example of it given to a world which was awestruck by his gesture. He went on to many more.
If I saw this picture and didn't know the story, I would think he was greeting a long lost friend, not the man who tried to kill him. What an incredible challenge this picture is for me, to not only forgive, but also to be able to dismiss the wrong that had been done to him.
He was a teacher who taught as much by actions as by words, and his papacy right up to the final moments was a classroom always in session. If we want to learn how to live the Beatitudes, we have only to pick up a picture album of the Papacy of John Paul II.
In the last moments of his life he gave us his lecture on death...how to face it, when to say "yes" to prolonging it, and when saying "no" is also appropriate. Shortly before he died he asked for the reading of the portion of Scripture that told us to bond our own death to Christ on the cross and to be serene in knowing that even death has invaluable meaning. That God is as much in control at that moment as He is in every other moment of our lives. How many people will be able to face death with courage because of this last lesson that John Paul II taught us?
Some of us who are older have known other popes, but none of them were transparent in the way that John Paul was transparent particularly in his years of suffering. The others wore their papacy like a cloak. Karol Wojtyla took off the cloak and looked to see what good use he could make of it. He didn't so much reign as Pope as he used the papacy like a tool to mold the faith according to the way he understood it. For him the papacy was an opportunity to change the world, and change it he did.
If he will be remembered for the overthrow of communism--and he certainly will--I think he must be equally remembered for the shape he gave to ecumenism. It wears his name. There are Jews and Muslims praying for him now because of the way he treated them, personally. If the break between Eastern and Western Christianity can ever be healed, it will have begun the healing process in the hands of John Paul II.
He was a legend in life, but he was also a man. For all of the good he did, yet he had shortcomings. Who but Christ can judge a pope? May those who wish that he had done more, had responded differently, had acted when he remained silent, find in their heart forgiveness for his shortcomings and a lesson to be applied, taken from this picture of forgiveness that he gave to us.
And may he be singing with the angels tonight.
Eternal rest grant, O Lord, to Karol Wojtyla. May he rest in peace. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
