it seems to me that His Holiness is ending his pontificate exactly as he began it, with the message "be not afraid." the first three words our precious Holy Father used to usher in his papacy were the words "be not afraid," echoing the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, "be not afraid, only believe." (st. mark 5:36)
john paul II has always stood as a beacon of light and hope, encouraging us to "be not afraid." now, as he passes from this life to the next, as he turns to Our Savior through Our Mother, his message to us is still one of light and hope. he reminds us that death is not something for believers to fear. how beautiful, how fitting, that our Holy Father should remind us until the very end that we should "be not afraid."
His Holiness ends his pontificate as he began it
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Sunday evening after Mass at the cathedral, as most in attendance headed out the front door, Bernadette and I went up to stand before the Pope’s picture which had been placed just below the altar. A purple cloth was... Read More
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A friend found this in an old book of poetry.
Some of the thoughts are very appropriate in meditating on Pope John Paul II, as he reaches the end of life.
===
ODE ON THE DEATH OF POPE PIUS XII
by A. D. Hope
To every season its proper act of joy,
To every age its natural mode of grace,
Each vision its hour, each talent we employ
Its destined time and place.
I was at Amherst when this great pope died;
The northern year was wearing towards the cold;
The ancient trees were in their autumn pride
Of russet, flame and gold.
Amherst in Massachusetts in the Fall:
I ranged the college campus to admire
Maple and beech, poplar and ash in all
Their panoply of fire.
Something that since a child I longed to see,
This miracle of the other hemisphere:
Whole forests in their annual ecstasy
Waked by the dying year.
Not budding Spring, not Summer's green parade
Clothed in such glory these resplendent trees;
The lilies of the field were not arrayed
In riches such as these.
Nature evolves their colours as a call,
A lure which serves to fertilize the seed;
How strange then that the splendour of the Fall
Should serve no natural need
And, having no end in nature, yet can yield
Such exquisite natural pleasures to the eye!
Who could have guessed in summer's green concealed
The leaf's resolve to die?
Yet from the first spring shoots
through all the year,
Masked in the chlorophyll's intenser green,
The feast of crimson was already there,
These yellows blazed unseen.
Now in the bright October sun the clear
Translucent colours trembled overhead
And as I walked, a voice I chanced to hear
Announced: The Pope is dead!
A human voice, yet there the place became Bethel:
each bough with pentecost was crowned;
The great trunks rapt in unconsuming flame
Stood as on holy ground.
I thought of this old man whose life was past,
Who in himself and his great office stood
Against the secular tempest as a vast
Oak spans the underwood;
Who in this age of Armageddon found
A voice that caused all men to hear it plain,
The blood of Abel crying from the ground
To stay the hand of Cain;
Who found from that great task small time to spare:
- For him and for mankind the hour was late -
So much to snatch, to save, so much to bear
That Mary's part must wait,
Until in his last years the change began:
A strange illumination of the heart,
Voices and visions such as mark the man
Chosen and set apart.
His death, they said, was slow, grotesque
and hard,
Yet in that gross decay, until the end
Untroubled in his joy he saw the Word
made spirit and ascend.
Those glorious woods and that triumphant death
Prompted me there to join their mysteries:
This Brother Albert, this great oak of faith,
Those fire-enchanted trees.
Seven years have passed, and still,
at times, I ask
Whether in man, as in those plants, may be
A splendour, which his human virtues mask,
Not given to us to see?
If to some lives at least comes a stage
When, all the active man now left behind,
They enter on the treasure of old age,
This autumn of the mind.
Then, while the heart stands still, beyond desire
The dying animal knows a strange serene:
Emerging in its ecstasy of fire
The burning soul is seen.
Who sees it?
Since old age appears to men
Senility, decrepitude, disease,
What Spirit walks among us, past our ken,
As we among the trees,
Whose unknown nature, blessed with keener sense
Catches its breath in wonder at the sight
And feels its being flood with that immense
Epiphany of light?
===
I just heard officially that he has died. May his sould and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of GOd, rest in peace.
What a beautiful illustration and marvelous thoughts. In the midst of death, we are in life.
Be not afraid... i love how our Pope always called us to truly live out that statement. It brings me such comfort during this time.