Our Catholic diocese will now begin to live a time of prayer, faith and thanksgiving to God for giving us Pope John Paul II, the man from a faraway country, as he described himself on the lovely October night when he was elected to the papacy.
A moment of memory
If I could be pardoned for a personal moment, I feel as if I have lost a dear friend and also a spiritual mentor and shepherd, a father and a magnificent example of the office of bishop.
I first met him in 1979 when he landed in Boston, coming from Ireland, on his first visit to this country. Before a quarter million people, mostly from universities and colleges, in that historic city, one could see the source of his extraordinary capacity to move young people. It was the fact that he challenged them with the story from the Scriptures about the rich young man. One could see that this would be a different kind of pope. He said that early on he realized that it was the will of Providence that he should preach the Gospel while "walking down the roads of the world."
A man of prayer
I will remember him especially as a man of prayer. This was true his whole life. He spoke about spending long hours in prayer in beloved churches and cathedrals in Poland.
Teacher
It is not an exaggeration to say that he has written on all the major areas which confront the church. Family life. The identity of the priest. The gift of sexuality. The dignity of the human person. The true nature of freedom. Respect for human life. The place of religious instruction, or catechesis. The value of work. Catholic social teaching. "The Splendor of Truth," which was a response to relativism. And so much more.
Young people
I saw him with youth in Denver, Toronto and Boston. He described it best himself. Imagine a pope saying this: "As a young priest, I learned to love human love." He writes, "Every where the pope goes, he seeks out the young and the young seek him out. Actually, in truth, it is not the pope who is being sought out at all; the One being sought out is Christ. It is not true that the pope brings the young from one end of the world to the other. It is they who bring him. Even though he is getting older they urge him to be young, they do not permit him to forget his experience, his discovery is youth and its great importance for the life of every man."
In his very first day of the inauguration of his papal ministry on Oct. 22, 1978, the pope said to young people, "You are the hope of the church and of the world. You are my hope." He repeated these words often.
The Jewish people
The pope in his earliest days had a deep love and sensitivity for the Jewish people. In his earliest days, he visited a synagogue in Rome. He referred to the Jewish people as "our elder brothers." Who can forget his visit to the scenes of the terrible holocaust, the death camps. "No one is allowed to pass by here," he said. Then his visit to Yad Veshem, the memorial of the holocaust, a visit which stirred deeply the Jewish people in the whole world. His visit to the Wall of Prayer in Jerusalem where he placed a brief message. "At last, a pope who knows what happened to us," said one European rabbi to an American cardinal.
Other Christians
When has there been a pope who wrote a letter, "Ut unum sint," ("that they all may be one"), in which he humbly raised the question of the papal office. How can we without changing its fundamental value and its fundamental truth live it in such a way that it becomes a source of unity and not division."
Everywhere he went, at every meeting, in every travel, he met with leaders of other Christian faiths.
The priesthood
If I can be pardoned a personal note, what means so much to me is the way he lived out his priestly vocation. Indeed, he always held a very strong sense of vocation. Beginning on the very first Holy Thursday, he wrote a letter to priests, and did so every year, even up to this year. Last week, we received his final letter to priests.
He gave to priests and to bishops an example of the real ideal of the priest, the Catholic priest in all his beauty. At a time of significant crisis in the church, he saw the priesthood as a way of love and wrote the following remarkable words:
"The priest who welcomes the call to ministry is in a position to make this a loving choice, the result of which the church and souls become his first interest, and with this concrete spirituality he becomes capable of loving the universal church and that part of it entrusted to him with the deep love of a husband for his wife."
I asked him once at lunch with other bishops, "Do you have a message for our priests?" "Tell your priests that the great day for the pope was not when he was made a bishop or pope but when he was ordained a priest and could say Mass for the people."
I once said to him as we left his chapel after prayer, "You have helped us all to be better priests and bishops." "Well," he replied, "a pope should be good for something."
The 'ad limina' visits
One of the promises you make when you become a bishop is communion with the pope. It is a public promise. To strengthen it, we come to Rome every five years. This pope saw this as central to his vocation in keeping with the request that Christ made to Peter to confirm the brothers; that is to confirm the other apostles. So, he did the following with every single bishop in the world.
- A personal visit with the head of each diocese.
- A luncheon with about 14 bishops.
- A Mass celebrated together early in the morning in his personal chapel.
- A talk, or allocution, on a particular pastoral question.
When he told Archbishop John Roach, at the time president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that this was his intention, the archbishop said, "You will not be able to do that." "I must," he replied.
One cannot conclude without reference to his great veneration for Our Lady to whom he was always very close. He recounts this himself. Mary played a great part in his life. After his terrible shooting, he turned to her in prayer, returning to the Marian Shrine in Portugal, and placing the bullet taken from his body in her crown, symbolizing his belief that it was her who had protected him.
Conclusion
What can I say about the life of this man? He has lived through the great moments of his age. As a very young boy in his native country, he experienced the onslaught of communism. Then followed 40 years of communism.
After working in a quarry during the war, he studied for the priesthood in secret. He was ordained in November 1945.
He served the church through Poland's dark night of communism. He was a father of the Second Vatican Council and a strong influence on its teachings. He was shot and deeply wounded in St. Peter's Square, one of the holiest places in the world for Catholics and others. He visited his assailant in prison and forgave "this brother."
He traveled the roads of the world to preach the Gospel of Christ, and transformed the papacy into a pastoral and evangelical office.
Pope John Paul II was an outstanding intellect, with doctorates in theology and philosophy. He was at home with young people and in hearing confessions. I consider him, along with my parents, as the greatest influence on my life and on my priesthood.
Rest in peace, brave soul. Rest in peace. May the angels lead you into paradise and may the martyrs receive you at your coming.
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our beloved Pope John Paul II has gone to God. We have been blessed to have been witnesses to this extraordinary life. For generations, his writings and teachings will be subjects of reflection and study.
We now have an opportunity to live a moment of faith and enlightenment together. Gathered around our parish priests, let us give thanks to God for the extraordinary life of this shepherd, the successor of Peter, who has brought light and wisdom to the church in a time of so much darkness and pain.
He has been a sign of great hope in the world. The pope, who said that he saw across the new millennium a "new springtime for Christianity," never gave up hope that the world could be better, and never gave up trust in God. Let us learn from him.
In these days, let us give thanks to Christ for this extraordinary life. Let us place him in the hands of Our Lady to whom he had such devotion since he was a young boy in Poland. Let us pray for our church that God will strengthen us as we absorb this great loss.
Sincerely yours in our Lord,
Most Reverend John M. D'Arcy
My Dear Brother Priests,
Our beloved Pope John Paul II has gone to God. We have been blessed to have been witnesses to this extraordinary life. For generations, his writings and teachings will be subjects of reflection and study.
Above everything else, it is his life that has touched us all. His life and his papacy have been extraordinary, and we should give thanks to God that our lives as shepherds of the flock overlapped with his.
His understanding of the great themes of the age, of the great challenges to the Gospel, and his strong evangelical spirit have marked our own lives and ministry, and will give light to the church for generations.
One thinks especially of what he has lived through. Nazism with all its horrors, including the Holocaust. The communist ideology. The dark night of the church in Poland. His presence and his influence on the Second Vatican Council. His election to the papacy. The attack against him in one of the holy places of the world, St. Peter's Square. His forgiveness of "this brother." His transformation of the papacy into a pastoral and evangelical office. His rapport with and influence on young people.
Who has ever written something like this? "When I was a young priest, I learned to love human love." His moral teaching is only beginning to be understood. For us, his priestly example. His understanding of the nature of the priestly office. His annual Letter to Priests.
His manly devotion. His being at home in both the intellectual life of the university and in the confessional. His love for the Jewish people. His ecumenical spirit with other Christians. His travels and his understanding of the great themes of the age, the great challenges to the Gospel and the appropriate response. His respect for freedom and for the dignity of the human person.
We can only thank God for his leadership and the presence among us of the extraordinary shepherd.
Now we have the opportunity to make these days moments of prayer and enlightenment for our people. Let us not lose this opportunity. Let us make ourselves available to our people, inspiring them and encouraging them during these days, teaching them about the papacy, the church, the vocation of Peter and his successors and the importance of this office in the life of the church.
I am enclosing a letter that I ask you to read at all Masses on the coming Sunday, and to place it in your bulletin as well. I ask every parish to have a special Mass for the Holy Father.
This is in addition to our Sunday Masses. It should be announced on the previous Sunday at all Masses. Members of other faiths should be invited. I would suggest that it be on the evening of the celebration of Rite of Christian Burial for the Pope in Rome.
Please make an effort to draw young people to your parish Mass for the Pope.
Our office of worship will be sharing helps with you during these days of mourning.
Later, we will join together in praying for the Holy Spirit to send us a worthy successor. For now, let our hearts be turned in thanksgiving for this extraordinary shepherd and in prayer for his entrance into eternal life.
With every best wish and prayer, I remain
Sincerely yours in our Lord,
Most Reverend John M. D'Arcy
