Our Pope – the Good Shepherd
Requiem Mass for Pope John Paul II, St Charles, Hull, 14th April 2005
Our Pope – the Good Shepherd
How appropriate to be celebrating this Mass for the Holy Father in St Charles’ Church – not because it’s the mother church of Hull but because the Pope’s baptismal name was ‘Charles’ and it was St Charles Borromeo he was named after and to whom he had great devotion.
Staying for a moment with things Polish, a Romantic Polish writer of 19th century, a contemporary of Lord Byron, called Juliusz Slowacki, wrote a poem about a Slav pope who would be a “brother to all humanity”. When I fell upon that fact in all that has been written about John Paul II over the last few weeks, I thought it an accurate summing-up: a brother to all humanity. Of course, he was much more than that: a truly holy father to his Church, a good shepherd who cared for his own sheep and also the sheep not of his fold.
A brother to humanity: it was reflected in the astounding cross section of world leaders and religious leaders who made their way to Rome for the funeral: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews. Among the many ‘firsts’ of his pontificate, John Paul had been the first pope to enter a mosque, a synagogue. And he was very inclusive in his visits to world leaders. Fidel Castro remarked on meeting him on his visit to Cuba in 1998 that it was like “being with family”. I almost expected him to be on the steps of St Peter’s last Friday. Now that would have presented a dilemma for western leaders at the Sign of Peace, especially if they’d been seated alphabetically!
But John Paul was not just a great diplomat wearing a white cassock. He can only be understood from within; from the perspective of his faith, as a Christian. When he was a new bishop, (aged just 38) he said to a gathering of doctors: “God has enormous confidence in the possibilities of man: that’s why He chose to become incarnate among us”. That’s why John Paul had enormous confidence in the possibilities of men and women: that’s why there was no one he would not meet, no hand he would not shake – from the Secretary of the local communist party threatening to take over the Crakow seminary to political figures with blood on their hands. The Pope was ‘freed’ by the truth that these too were God’s children with enormous possibilities. They too were sheep of the Lord’s fold that Lord wished to lead; and as his Vicar, he would reach out to.
The Pope believed passionately in freedom. In the early years of his pontificate it sent shock waves into Communist countries of eastern Europe. I discovered an old Observer Magazine from 1987 which called him “a great liberator”. It said he managed to speak to millions of anonymous people who had been made to feel – by poverty, by inhuman governments – that they did not matter. He ‘liberated’ them by giving them a sense of worth, a sense of their irreplaceability. The article concluded, prophetically: “It is an effect which is bad news for tyrants”. The rest is history.
But the freedom the Pope spoke of was not that claimed by the ‘free’ western nations, who of course loved him whole he was challenging the Communists. It was not just freedom to seek pleasure, freedom to get rich. It was always freedom for truth, freedom to search for the truth of every human life, that is, freedom to meet God in the inner sanctuary of conscience and the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Pope was a brother to humanity, he was a humanist, a Christian humanist, because he understood that only Jesus Christ satisfies the restless human heart.
Jesus Christ satisfied the yearnings of his heart and made him a very attractive human being to others. Royalty, rock stars, racing drivers, people of faith, people of no faith, called to see him at the Vatican and were warmed by his humanity. He loved to talk about sport. As a student priest at the Belgian College in Rome in the ‘50s he had once played football against the English College. We were routed! The English team included a number of current bishops and even the odd cardinal – now that hasn’t been mentioned in recent days! The Pope loved skiing. When he continued to ski after being made a cardinal, a brother bishop suggested it was “unbecoming” for a cardinal to ski. “It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly”, he was told. He was completely and attractively human.
For most of us here he was also a father, a father to the Church. Much of the ritual surrounding the death of a pope is still a mystery to me. Is there really a silver hammer? Why three coffins? And why a red chasuble? Red is worn on the feasts of martyrs: those men and women who have laid down their lives for God and his people. “The Good Shepherd is the one who lays down his life for his sheep” said Jesus. Thankfully the Holy Father did not die a martyr’s death. But he often spoke of a living martyrdom of those seeking to go against the tide and be faithful to Christ. He called others to it. And firstly he lived it himself. If the word ‘martyrdom’ sounds formal, it translates simply as love. The Holy Father spoke of love as “the gift of self for and to another”. His priesthood was a very loving priesthood, full of self-giving for others.
His positive view of humanity and his rooted-ness in God meant he was able to reach out to others in extraordinary ways. Always. As a young priest he raised eyebrows by spending time not in clerical circles but with young people. They were students he came to know as University Chaplain, colleagues and their families as a young lecturer. Because priests were not permitted by the Communist authorities to run youth groups, when he took groups of young people on skiing and canoeing trips into the mountains they would call him wujek – uncle. Long after he was “Your Holiness” to the world, he would also answer to “uncle”! He once explained: “The duty of a priest is to live with people everywhere they are, to be with them in everything but sin”. It gave him a sympathy and insight into the intimate lives of people he’d otherwise only meet at the altar rails. It made him an excellent Confessor, a better priest, a better pope.
Polish Catholics cannot have been surprised then - as the world was - by how he reached out to people with such energy and so naturally, when he became pope. In the mid ‘80s he had an idea which grew into one of his greatest achievements: a gathering of young people from across the world. The pessimists said “They won’t come”. But they did. And they kept coming. Why were there so many young people in Rome last week? The night the Holy Father died, they were kneeling in St Peter’s Square, they came in greater numbers to file silently past his body in St Peter’s Basilica. John Sopel, Huw Edwards and others couldn’t work it out. There were plenty of clues in the hats, scarves and sweat shirts they were wearing, in the songs they were singing – from the World Youth Days in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Czestochowa, Denver, Manila, Paris, Rome, Toronto. The Italian police recognised them and gave the nickname “papa ragazzi’ – the Pope’s kids. The Pope had reached out to them, it was their turn to come to him. “Why do they come when they don’t agree with him?” asked journalist after journalist. One Polish girl summed up the views of many: “It’s the way he treated us; he was good to us”. You see, they knew he loved them, and that was enough. I remember standing in the blazing sun in the fields outside Rome in a crowd of 2.5 million (the largest ever gathering of youth on the planet, actually). The Pope said this in his homily at Sunday Mass (he was speaking about Christ’s love for us in the Eucharist):“Yes, dear friends, Christ loves us and he loves us for ever; he loves us even when we disappoint him, he loves us even when we fail to live up to his expectations; he embraces us in his mercy.”
The Pope loved us with that Christ-like love. He loved us throughout his papacy, even when we disappointed him, even when we failed to live up to his expectations, he embraced us. The young knew it and they loved him back. Do you remember when he came to Britain in 1982. It was at a youth gathering somewhere. In the middle of his homily- they’d grown a little… tired - they began chanting: “John Paul II, we Love you”. He stopped, put down his sermon and smiled, and called out: “John Paul II, he love you” and they roared! There was more interaction between the Pope and a gathering of several million young people than between most parish priests and their Sunday congregation of one or two hundred! At the end of one World Youth Day he thanked the youth for being better for his health than all his doctors. And he quoted a Polish proverb: “Kto z kim przestaje, takim sie staje” - for the Poles! For the rest, it means, ‘if you live with the young, you will become young yourself’.
Some have said: yes, young people liked the messenger but ignored the message. Wasn’t it sometimes like that for Our Lord? When Jesus preached, many listened, few became disciples. One of the Pope’s favourite lines, I think from St Luke’s Gospel, was: “Do not be afraid, little flock; it has pleased my Father to give you the Kingdom!” The Holy Father offered nothing less. Because he knew that young people had so much potential, he was not afraid to offer them the fullness of God’s Kingdom. To the young people in Rome in august 2000 he admitted the struggles: “Is it hard to believe in the 3rd millennium? Yes it is hard. There is no need to hide it.” But then he reminded them of the grace of God and invited them to be the “saints of the 3rd millennium”, and to say “yes” with courage and without reserve to anything God may be calling them to do.
He was a brother to humanity, a father to his Church, a good shepherd after the heart of Christ. There was a French journalist called Andre Frossard. He was still an agnostic in 1978; he died a few years ago, a Catholic. He was spot on when he wired his newspaper from Rome on the election of the new pope in October 1978:
“This is not a pope from Poland, this is a pope from Galilee”.