The Catholic Weekly 12 April 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 15 12, April, 2020 FEATURE The pope blesses patients suffering from AIDS and leprosy during his visit to the Sanctuary of St Lazarus in El Rincon, Cuba, in January 1998. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/ARTURO MARI, L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO St. John Paul II greets throngs of Poles waiting for a glimpse of their native son at the monastery of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa during his 1979 trip to Poland. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/CHRIS NIEDENTHAL gogue in 1986; hosting world religious leaders at a “prayer summit” for peace in 1986; and traveling to Damascus, Syria, in 2001, where he be- came the first pontiff to visit a mosque. To his own flock, he brought continual reminders that prayer and the sacra- ments were crucial to being a good Christian. He held up Mary as a mod- el of holiness for the whole church, updated the rosary with five new “Mysteries of Light” and named more than 450 new saints – more than all his predecessors combined. The pope lived a deep spiritual life – something that was not easily translated by the media. Yet in earlier years, this pope seemed made for modern media, and his pon- tificate has been captured in some lasting images, like huddling in a prison-cell con- versation with his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot the pope in St Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981. Karol Jozef Wojtyla was bornMay 18, 1920, inWadow- ice, a small town near Krakow, in southern Poland. He lost his mother at age 9, his only brother at age 12 and his fa- ther at age 20. An accomplished actor in Krakow’s underground thea- tre during the war, he changed paths and joined the clan- destine seminary after being turned away from a Carmelite monastery with the advice: “You are destined for greater things.” Following theologi- cal and philosophical studies in Rome, he returned to Po- land for parish work in 1948, spending weekends on camp- ing trips with young people. When named auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958 he was Poland’s youngest bishop, and he became archbishop of Krakow in 1964. He also came to the attention of the univer- sal church through his work on important documents of the Second Vatican Council. Though increasingly re- spected in Rome, Cardinal Wojtyla was a virtual un- known when elected pope on 16 October 1978. In St Peter’s Square that night, he set his papal style in a heartfelt talk – delivered in fluent Italian, in- terrupted by loud cheers from the crowd. In his later years, the pope moved with difficulty, tired easily and was less expressive, all symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. By the time he celebrated his 25th anniversary in Octo- ber 2003, aides had to wheel him on a chair and read his speeches for him. Yet he pushed himself to the limits of his physical capabilities, convinced that such suffering was itself a form of spiritual leadership. With the third-longest pon- tificate in church history, St John Paul died at the age of 84 on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday. Divine Mercy Sunday had special significance for the pope, who made it a church- wide feast day to be celebrat- ed a week after Easter. Pope Benedict beatified him on Divine Mercy Sunday, 1 May 2011, and Pope Francis canonised him on the same feast day, 27 April 2014. - CNS Pope showed how suffering can achieve REMEMBERING ST John Paul II and the 15th anniversary of his death, Pope Francis en- couraged people to pray for his intercession and trust inDivine Mercy, especially during these “difficult days” of the coronavi- rus pandemic. St John Paul will always be an important figure for the church, but is even more so now at a time when so many people are suffering world- wide, said Cardinal Angelo Co- mastri, archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica. The last years of his pontif- icate reflected personal trial and suffering, and he showed the world through his witness a life filled with faith and a way of accepting pain as something redeemed by God’s love, he said in an interview with Vati- can News on 1 April. “This is one of the rea- sons why the epidemic is so frightening because, for so many people, faith has died. John Paul II was a believer, a convinced believer, a coherent believer and faith illuminated the path of his life,” the cardinal said. Just as the church will be marking Holy Week and the Easter Triduum in a radical- ly different way this year be- cause of restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the cardinal recalled how St John Paul lived the same liturgical period in 2005 with serious illness and in isolation. “We all remember John Paul II’s last ‘Good Friday.’ The image we saw on television is unforgettable – the pope, who had lost all his physical strength, holding the crucifix in his hands, gazing at it with pure love. One could sense he was saying, ‘Jesus, I too am on the cross like you. But together with you, I await the resurrec- tion,’” he said. “John Paul II knew that life is a race toward God’s banquet – the feast of God’s embrace, his infinite glory and happiness,” the cardinal said. “But we must prepare our- selves for that encounter, we must purify ourselves in order to be ready for it, we must cast off any reservations of pride and selfishness, so that we can ¾ ¾ Carol Glatz embrace himwho is love with- out shadows,” he said. The late pope lived his suf- fering with this spirit, even dur- ing very difficult moments, like the 1981 assassination attempt, he said. “He never lost his serenity. Why? Because before him he always had the purpose of life. Today, many people no longer believe in that purpose. That’s why they live throughpainwith despair, because they can’t see beyond the pain,” he said. Before being named arch- priest of St Peter’s Basilica in 2006, Cardinal Comastri served more than eight years as the papal delegate oversee- ing the Shrine of Our Lady of Loreto, traditionally marked as the Blessed Virgin Mary’s house fromNazareth. St John Paul, in fact, asked the guardian of the Marian shrine to lead what would be his last Lenten retreat that fell during the Year of the Rosary. Cardinal Comastri has been reciting the rosary and praying the Angelus inside St Peter’s Basilica every day at noon as it is livestreamed on Vatican media. Marian devotion was a hallmark of the saint-pope, so much so “Totus Tuus Maria” (“Mary, I am all yours”) was on his coat of arms. When asked why Mary was so important to the late pope, Cardinal Comastri told Vatican News, “Because Our Lady was close to Jesus at the moment of the crucifixion and she be- lieved this was the moment of God’s victory over human wickedness” through love – God’s greatest strength. From the cross, when Jesus told Mary, “Behold your son,” referring to his disciple, John, the cardinal said that Jesus was telling her, “Don’t think of me, but think of others, help them to transform pain into love, help them to believe that good- ness is the strength that over- comes evil.” “From that moment on, Mary took concern for us upon herself, and when we let our- selves be guided by her, we are in safe hands. “John Paul II believed this, he trusted Mary, and with Mary he transformed pain into love,” he said. - CNS Pope John Paul II leans against his crosier during Mass in New York’s Central Park in 1995. PHOTO: CNS/MICHAEL OKONIEWSKI