Diocesan Mass for the
Holy Father
by The Most Reverend
John C. Nienstedt
This has been an extraordinary two weeks
of seeing the whole world focused on the life and death of our Holy Father,
Pope John Paul II. After 26 years of preaching, teaching and witnessing to the
love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, all his
tireless, dedicated efforts (Italian instancabile) seems to have born fruit in
the hundreds of thousands of people – Catholics and non-Catholics alike – who
demonstrated that they had been touched and touched deeply by this apostle of
faith.
We have heard him heralded as:
The defender of the
unborn and the poor;
The preacher of peace;
The teacher of Catholic
truth;
A man of prayer.
He was applauded for his constant
outreach for ecumenical and Interreligious dialogue;
the first Pope to visit
a Jewish synagogue;
the first Pope to pray
in an Islamic mosque;
the first Pope to preach
from a Lutheran pulpit.
He covered 700,000 miles in his
apostolic visits – equal to 29 trips around the world.
He wrote 15 encyclicals, 14 apostolic
exhortations and countless allocutions and audience addresses.
He had a special love for saints, having
canonized 477 of them, and a great affection for the young as we saw so often,
but especially in the World Youth Days he summoned.
Surely there was a moment in his own
youth when he heard the Lord call him to this vocation and he willingly
responded –
Was it
at the death of his mother, his father or his older brother?
Was it
in the crucible of Nazi domination and destruction?
Was it trudging
back home after an exhaustive night of working in a Polish factory?
Was it
under the careful tutelage of Cardinal Sapieha, his mentor and spiritual
father?
Whenever it happened, surely it occurred
by Jesus looking at him as he did at Peter in tonight’s Gospel and asking,
“Karl, do you love me more than these?”
And in that moment, the Virgin Mary must
have whispered in his ear, “Do not be afraid,” thus allowing young Karl Wojtyla
to respond:
“Yes, Lord, you know all things; you
know that I love you.”
And since that day, the Lord took him by
the hand, tied him fast and led him where he might not otherwise have gone.
Literally he was poured out like a
libation, fighting the good fight until he had finished the race. And oh how
the Lord stood at his side to give him strength! . . . so that through him the
preaching task might be completed and all the nations might hear the Gospel.
He ministered without ceasing so that
the image of Christ’s Body, the Church, as depicted in tonight’s passage from
the Acts of the Apostles, might be more perfectly fulfilled. In that Scripture,
the disciples of the early Church are described as being:
- devoted to the
teaching of the apostles
- devoted to communal
life
- devoted to the breaking
of the bread
and - devoted to prayer
Let’s look at those categories in light
of Pope John Paul’s witness. First of all, John Paul knew who he was: the successor of the apostle Peter. Many from
the media have commented that he was doctrinally conservative – well, guess
what, so were his four predecessors and so, too, will be his subsequent
successors! Being doctrinally conservative
is part of a Pope’s job description as it is also part of your identity and
mine as Catholic believers.
As Catholics, we don’t believe in the
individual interpretation of Scripture, we don’t decide how many sacraments
there are, we don’t rewrite the Ten Commandments or the Natural Law to suit our
own desires.
But as Catholics, we do understand what
The media can take all the surveys they want
from across this nation of however many cafeteria Catholics they can find, but
the Church cannot change the essential kerygma given to her by Jesus Christ. Her
mission is set by Him alone. This was the constant teaching that Pope John Paul
II fearlessly defended.
Secondly, Pope John Paul II has told us
over and over again that the Church is fundamentally a communio
reflecting and participating in the very communal life of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
As such, she must distinguish the
essential doctrines of the faith from the non-essential aspects in which those doctrines
may be historically or culturally wrapped. I said that the Chrism Mass that to
privatize the Church does violence to her very nature. One cannot force an
individualistic ideology on a reality that is meant to be communal without
destroying it.
This is a lesson we have yet to learn. One
sociologist commenting on last summer’s debate on Politicians and Holy
Communion said that the Church in the
Pope John Paul II reminded us that the
Church is a communio and her members are called not to pursue their own
personal ideologies, but rather to build up the Church in faith, hope and love.
As
Thirdly, the Holy Father has called us
ever so passionately to be devoted to the Holy Eucharist, finding the presence
of Jesus in the breaking of the bread. He died in the midst of this Year of the
Eucharist which he himself proclaimed. In doing so, he exhorted us to contemplate
the face of Jesus contained in the consecrated species of the sacred host and
the Precious Blood.
I am only too aware how essential that
kind of contemplation is called for right here in our own Diocese. Time and again,
I have encountered among our practicing Catholics, and even some Extraordinary Ministers
of Holy Communion, a woefully inadequate comprehension of the Church’s
understanding of this most precious gift. Inevitably our understanding of the
Sacrament of Holy Orders is linked with the theology of the Eucharist and that,
too, is in a state of remedial repair. My brothers and sisters, if we cannot
fully appreciate how the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, how can we dare to
hope that it will make us into the Body of Christ?
Lastly, Pope John Paul II was a daily
disciple of prayer. On more than once occasion, I had the opportunity of
entering his private chapel before morning Mass to see him totally absorbed in
prayer. The staff called his deep breathing and heavy groans during these
periods as “his sighing in the Spirit.”
One could see a personal engagement in his exercise of communing with
the Trinity. Such prayer does not happen overnight, but rather results from countless
hours of being present to and vulnerable before God.
In a special way, this Pope showed the
youth of our Church the importance of prayer. How could they know God’s
will? How would they discover a
vocation? How indeed could they
determine right from wrong if they could not or would not pray? Devotion to prayer, for the Pope, was basic nutrition
and hydration for the spiritual life. Without it, he knew that his very soul
would die.
That vision of the Church from the Acts
of the Apostles showing the disciples being devoted to the teaching of the apostles,
to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to prayer, is the very
vision that Pope John Paul II has tried with such dedication to teach us these
past 26 years.
The outpouring of affection and
attention that the world has shown him these past two weeks would seem to
indicate that his teaching has been heard, at least by some, but now it is up
to us – you and me – to see that it endures. Let us pray that we are up
to the task.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. [And let perpetual light shine upon him.]
May he rest in peace. [Amen.]
May his
soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest
in peace. [Amen.]