Viva il Papa

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the death of John Paul II on April 2, 2005 at 9:37pm Rome time. I vividly remember the days leading up to his death and the moment when I found out that he had gone to the 'house of the Father' as he himself put it.  I was at Franciscan Univesity during the time and it was an intensely emotional and transcendent experience.  Even as I recall John Paul and and the days preceding and following his death I've been getting teary-eyed all morning because the effect he had on my life and the memory of those moments are so great.  An incredibly vast number of people feel the same way I do of course because his prayer life was so intense and central to his life that he was able to radiate Christ to the whole world in a way that only a few have been able to do.  His legacy is absolutely marked by his interior life and the courage he had in entering into it. 

In the video below a commentator mentions that during the final Holy Week of his life he was noticably absent from the Triduum celebrations, not physically being able to celebrate the Via Crucis or the Masses - he had to remain in his apartment to watch it all unfold on television.  On a deeper level though I would argue that it was that Holy Week in which he was most profoundly near.  During Holy Week we are all called to unite our sufferings to the Lord's cross in a particular way and John Paul knew the rich value of suffering when united to Jesus.  His entire life was one of amazing fruitfulness, but upon reflection it would seem that the last two weeks of his life were the most fecund.  Just as Jesus suffered the mockery and jeers to 'come off the cross' but chose to remain on it until the end out of love, so in following in his Master's footsteps, John Paul II remained on the cross until the end allowing God to pour grace upon the world through the union of his suffering with that of the Lord's. 

John Paul II is an example of a life lived to the fullest, a life that is lived completely out of love for God and others, an example of how one man can profoundly change the life of another person.  His papacy continues to have just as much of an effect on people now as it did when he was alive.  The chants of "Magnus! Magnus!" at his funeral still reverberate today as we recall that he really was great.

In his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, he wrote:

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to himself". If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly "expressed" and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus". The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly-and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being-he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must "appropriate" and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he "gained so great a Redeemer", and if God "gave his only Son "in order that man "should not perish but have eternal life".

By allowing himself to be loved by Christ and reciprocally loving Him in return through an intense life of prayer and gift, John Paul was able to live out this message. 

If you have time I encourage you to watch this video all the way through.  You'll notice that when they are interviewing Cardinal Dziwisz toward the beginning that he takes them into the private Chapel in Krakow and points out a desk to the reporter.  I'll let you take a guess about which document you think John Paul wrote upon that desk: