“JOHN PAUL II, WE LOVE YOU!”
(Some Personal Notes on Blessed John Paul II)
Rev. Fr. Fausto Gomez, OP
On February 25, 2011 I had a chance to visit again the tomb of Pope John Paul II. I was told by my friends in Rome that his tomb was the most visited by pilgrims. (From now on, it will be much easier to visit the place where his coffin will be placed: in the Basilica of St. Peter itself, near the Pieta of Michel Angelo) Although it was still early morning, dozens upon dozens of people were visiting and praying before his simple tomb in the crypt of the Vatican: some were standing, others were kneeling and many others were just passing slowly by the tomb – all were silent, some were crying. I lingered for a while there and remembered how lucky I was for having had the privilege of meeting John Paul II seven times. Nothing personal, I was just lucky! Truly lucky! In these light notes, I shall touch and comment mainly on my personal encounters with John Paul II.
From May 1, 2011, the Church has a new blessed in the person of Pope John Paul II. Millions of Catholics and men and women of good who were touched by John Paul II rejoiced! In spite of the criticism by some theologians and liberals within the Church, and with due respect, I believe history will also consider him not just a most popular and approachable Pope but a great one.
The first time I met Pope John Paul II was on September 5, 1980 in Castel Gandolfo. Together with twenty eight priests and eight bishops, I had the great honor to concelebrate at the Eucharist presided by the Holy Father. What impressed me most then was the contemplative attitude of the Holy Father through the Mass: totally absorbed, following carefully the rhythm of the Mass, pronouncing each word (in Latin) slowly and distinctly, making strategic pauses of silence. Throughout his 26 years as successor of Saint Peter, John Paul II showed the primary place of prayer in his life. Some authors today consider him a modern mystic. It has been said that he made decisions on his knees. Monsignor Slawomir, the postulator of the Pontiff’s cause of beatification, was asked: What aspect of the Pope’s life particularly struck you? He answered: He was certainly a mystic, “a mystic in the sense that he was a man who lived in the presence of God, who let himself guided by the Holy Spirit, who was in constant dialogue with the Lord, who built his whole life around the question (asked by Jesus to Peter), ‘Do you love me’.” A close collaborator said on April 30, 2011: “To see him pray was to see a person who was in conversation with God.”
I remember with special fondness the third time I met him personally. (The second time I met him took place during his first visit to the University of Santo Tomas, Manila in February 1981; in this visit, he beatified Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions Martyrs – now saints – at the Luneta Park, Manila) It was during the World Youth Day in Manila (January 1995), where the Holy Father had the greatest audience ever: more than four million people attended the Pope’s final Mass. (One Hong Kong newspaper wrote that then the multitude became a megatude). He celebrated Mass in the University of Santo Tomas for the youth delegates – 245 from all over the world – to the 5th International Youth Forum. This time after the Mass he greeted one by one the students and some others who had the great luck of attending the Mass. While the Holy Father greeted the youth he embraced them – and also some others not so young including me. While he embraced me I could hardly tell him, “Holy Father I have read your lovely book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.” He looked at me intensely and kindly, and told me “Bene, bene.” I was deeply touched and really moved – almost to tears! I remember the words of TIME when the magazine named the Pope Man of the Year (1994): “He generates electricity unmatched by anyone else in the world.”
From May 1, 2011, the Church has a new blessed in the person of Pope John Paul II. Millions of Catholics and men and women of good who were touched by John Paul II rejoiced! In spite of the criticism by some theologians and liberals within the Church, and with due respect, I believe history will also consider him not just a most popular and approachable Pope but a great one.
The first time I met Pope John Paul II was on September 5, 1980 in Castel Gandolfo. Together with twenty eight priests and eight bishops, I had the great honor to concelebrate at the Eucharist presided by the Holy Father. What impressed me most then was the contemplative attitude of the Holy Father through the Mass: totally absorbed, following carefully the rhythm of the Mass, pronouncing each word (in Latin) slowly and distinctly, making strategic pauses of silence. Throughout his 26 years as successor of Saint Peter, John Paul II showed the primary place of prayer in his life. Some authors today consider him a modern mystic. It has been said that he made decisions on his knees. Monsignor Slawomir, the postulator of the Pontiff’s cause of beatification, was asked: What aspect of the Pope’s life particularly struck you? He answered: He was certainly a mystic, “a mystic in the sense that he was a man who lived in the presence of God, who let himself guided by the Holy Spirit, who was in constant dialogue with the Lord, who built his whole life around the question (asked by Jesus to Peter), ‘Do you love me’.” A close collaborator said on April 30, 2011: “To see him pray was to see a person who was in conversation with God.”
I remember with special fondness the third time I met him personally. (The second time I met him took place during his first visit to the University of Santo Tomas, Manila in February 1981; in this visit, he beatified Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions Martyrs – now saints – at the Luneta Park, Manila) It was during the World Youth Day in Manila (January 1995), where the Holy Father had the greatest audience ever: more than four million people attended the Pope’s final Mass. (One Hong Kong newspaper wrote that then the multitude became a megatude). He celebrated Mass in the University of Santo Tomas for the youth delegates – 245 from all over the world – to the 5th International Youth Forum. This time after the Mass he greeted one by one the students and some others who had the great luck of attending the Mass. While the Holy Father greeted the youth he embraced them – and also some others not so young including me. While he embraced me I could hardly tell him, “Holy Father I have read your lovely book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.” He looked at me intensely and kindly, and told me “Bene, bene.” I was deeply touched and really moved – almost to tears! I remember the words of TIME when the magazine named the Pope Man of the Year (1994): “He generates electricity unmatched by anyone else in the world.”
The last time I met the John Paul II was on February 21, 2004 at the Sala Clementina in the Vatican (like my three previous encounters with him) in the company of about a hundred and fifty people, most of us members of the Pontifical Academy for Life. By that time, he was already sickly and with his Parkinson’s developing slowly. (Parenthetically, the miracle worked by Pope John Paul II that led partly to his fast-track beatification was the healing from Parkinson’s of French Sister Marie Simon-Pierre right after she asked John Paul II to cure her) He could not walk anymore and it was hard to understand his speech. But still then, and against the advice of some of his assistants, he greeted us – about 130 people – one by one: we knelt before him and kissed his ring; he blessed us and smiled. Many writers on John Paul II underline this characteristic of the late Pope: he was concerned with the person, with each person, each one creature and image of God. This is one of the reason he touched the hearts of so many people throughout the world: the young, the children, the old, men from other religions and cultures… In his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979), issued a few months after his election, the Pope explained that man is the road of the Church and Christ is the road of man: Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Son Mary (the Pope was a faithful servant of Mary: totus tuus!), the primordial foundation of Christian morality, the Way, the Truth and the Life. John Paul II was missionary of the world: he visited about 130 countries during his papacy. He was from Poland but, indeed, the world was his parish. The well-known Catholic convert André Fossard once said: “This is not a Pope from Poland, but a Pope from Galilee.” John Paul II knew, loved and followed Jesus to the end.
More than my personal encounters with John Paul II I remember – with his holy life of dedication to Christ, Mary and the Church – some of his fundamental teachings. In particular his teachings on human life found especially in his encyclical (he wrote fourteen encyclicals) Evangelium Vitae,” or The Gospel of Life (1995), the first encyclical on bioethics, where he repeats one of his constant mottos: “Human life must be defended from the moment of conception (against abortion) to natural death (against euthanasia and the death penalty).” I also treasure his radical and creative social teachings found in his three social encyclicals and many addresses and exhortations. It is worth noting here that John Paul II, a remarkable worker since he was a youth, was beatified on May 1, the day of labor; moreover, he wrote an important encyclical, Laborem Exercens 1981, on human work: “Capital is for labor; work is for man.” From the social teachings, I consider this point (from his Novo Millennio Ineunte, 2001) most innovative: heretic is not only the believer who does not accept or distorts an article of the Creed but one who does not share something with the poor and weak of the world. Also I love to underline his substantial teachings on freedom and truth (in his basic encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 1994): “freedom is not freedom from the truth but freedom in the truth”; on justice and love: “love is the soul of justice”; on peace and democracy: as it is well known, the late Pope contributed immensely to the collapse of European communism in 1989. Just before the war of Iraq he shouted from the famous papal balcony in the Vatican: “No to war. War doesn’t resolve anything. I have seen war. I know what war is.” The Pope words on justice ring frequently in my ears: “No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness.” As a religious man, I appreciate John Paul II Vita Consecrata (1996), his important apostolic exhortation in which he invites religious men and women to be holy, that is prayerful and compassionate: to go up to the mountain of prayer and to come down to the market places of the world and witness their passion for God and compassion for humanity.
(Parenthetically, let me mention here that the main criticism these days against the Pope is focused on his apparent silence regarding the terrible sexual scandal of priests and their victimizing of innocent children. Knowing John Paul II, a really wise and holy man, I think I can truly say that he was not really aware!)
I remember once, somewhere in 2004, discussing with a friend the possibility that John Paul II might resign as Pope. Later on I read somewhere: a person asked John Paul II if he would resign. The Pope answered: “I cannot, because Jesus did not go down from the cross.” On February 21-23, 2005, the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life could not have an audience with the Holy Father. By then John Paul II was gravely ill. He would die one month and a half later, on April 2, 2005, after giving his most moving and last speech to the world: his patient, compassionate, dignified, exemplary way of dying and facing death. Before dying, when thousands of young people were camping near the Vatican and praying for the Pope, he said to his assistants: “Tell the young, I love them.” We are told that his last words – almost inaudible – were: “Let me go… Let me go to the house of the Father.” I remember the Pope had said at the beginning of his pontificate, then with his booming voice: “Our life is a pilgrimage to the house of the Father.” His beatification means he is in the house of the father! I am sure he will remember us singing in Manila, in New York, in London, in Rome: “John Paul II, we love you!” and telling him now: “Blessed John Paul II, pray for us!” (F. Gomez Berlana, OP: Macau, May 2, 2011)
More than my personal encounters with John Paul II I remember – with his holy life of dedication to Christ, Mary and the Church – some of his fundamental teachings. In particular his teachings on human life found especially in his encyclical (he wrote fourteen encyclicals) Evangelium Vitae,” or The Gospel of Life (1995), the first encyclical on bioethics, where he repeats one of his constant mottos: “Human life must be defended from the moment of conception (against abortion) to natural death (against euthanasia and the death penalty).” I also treasure his radical and creative social teachings found in his three social encyclicals and many addresses and exhortations. It is worth noting here that John Paul II, a remarkable worker since he was a youth, was beatified on May 1, the day of labor; moreover, he wrote an important encyclical, Laborem Exercens 1981, on human work: “Capital is for labor; work is for man.” From the social teachings, I consider this point (from his Novo Millennio Ineunte, 2001) most innovative: heretic is not only the believer who does not accept or distorts an article of the Creed but one who does not share something with the poor and weak of the world. Also I love to underline his substantial teachings on freedom and truth (in his basic encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 1994): “freedom is not freedom from the truth but freedom in the truth”; on justice and love: “love is the soul of justice”; on peace and democracy: as it is well known, the late Pope contributed immensely to the collapse of European communism in 1989. Just before the war of Iraq he shouted from the famous papal balcony in the Vatican: “No to war. War doesn’t resolve anything. I have seen war. I know what war is.” The Pope words on justice ring frequently in my ears: “No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness.” As a religious man, I appreciate John Paul II Vita Consecrata (1996), his important apostolic exhortation in which he invites religious men and women to be holy, that is prayerful and compassionate: to go up to the mountain of prayer and to come down to the market places of the world and witness their passion for God and compassion for humanity.
(Parenthetically, let me mention here that the main criticism these days against the Pope is focused on his apparent silence regarding the terrible sexual scandal of priests and their victimizing of innocent children. Knowing John Paul II, a really wise and holy man, I think I can truly say that he was not really aware!)
I remember once, somewhere in 2004, discussing with a friend the possibility that John Paul II might resign as Pope. Later on I read somewhere: a person asked John Paul II if he would resign. The Pope answered: “I cannot, because Jesus did not go down from the cross.” On February 21-23, 2005, the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life could not have an audience with the Holy Father. By then John Paul II was gravely ill. He would die one month and a half later, on April 2, 2005, after giving his most moving and last speech to the world: his patient, compassionate, dignified, exemplary way of dying and facing death. Before dying, when thousands of young people were camping near the Vatican and praying for the Pope, he said to his assistants: “Tell the young, I love them.” We are told that his last words – almost inaudible – were: “Let me go… Let me go to the house of the Father.” I remember the Pope had said at the beginning of his pontificate, then with his booming voice: “Our life is a pilgrimage to the house of the Father.” His beatification means he is in the house of the father! I am sure he will remember us singing in Manila, in New York, in London, in Rome: “John Paul II, we love you!” and telling him now: “Blessed John Paul II, pray for us!” (F. Gomez Berlana, OP: Macau, May 2, 2011)
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