Amen...
...and with that final exclamation, good Karol Wojtyla left this mortal coil.
In my last post I mentioned that when he was raised to the Papacy, I couldn't have been bothered by the news. It's not totally true. My ears did prick up, back in '78, when I had heard the new Pope was Polish. I remember thinking then that all of Italy was going to be up in arms over the selection. But that was it...another old man elected to an old position in an even older Church that had long since been relevant to my mind.
I started going back to Church in the Fall of 1982 (I had been away from the day I made my confirmation at the age of 12 in '73) after I met the young lady who was to become my wife. She was a regular Church-goer and I rightly assumed that if I wanted to be a part of her future I had to participate fully in this part of her life in the present.
The parish we attended for Mass had available for parishoners various catholic oriented magazines and papers and among those I found a copy of Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man).
I started to read it one afternoon and I was knocked agog when I read the following from the chapter "For the Church all ways lead to Man:"
"This man is the way for the Church-a way that, in a sense, is the basis of all the other ways that the Church must walk - because man - every man without any exception whatever - has been redeemed by Christ, and because with man - with each man without any exception whatever - Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: "Christ, who died and was raised up for all, provides man"-each man and every man- "with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme calling."
Now up to this point I believed my self to be lost, forever. But after reading this...I was stunned.
And so...even though I had been taught this, had read this in the Good Book, I had finally heard the Word...I was redeemed whether I liked it or not.
I kinda liked it.
And therefore if I was redeemed, through no effort from myself...then I had a responsiblity to honor that redemption. And to do so I needed to think, reflect, pray, and act with the mind of an adult and not with the nearly lost memory of a pre-pubescent child.
My world spun out of control...I had thought, as many do, that once you lean on the crutch that is religion, you lose your mind...but the opposite happened.
After taking that leap into the abyss that is Faith, my thoughts became clearer. My heart beat wilder and my soul became purer (though some black patches remain).
And I have Karol to thank for helping to nudge me over the edge. I am convinced he became Pope...for me. So that he could tell me once more, about Him.
God calls us in many ways.
Some hear from the moment they can understand. Others hear it from the Bible. Others hear it in the heartbeat of their unborn children, in the crash of the car wreck that almost took their life, in the foxhole...
Others come upon like I did...by the unlikely election of a non-Italian Pope... a chance meeting with a beautiful, pious, young woman...a casual pick-up of a papal encyclical...a once in a lifetime moment of lucidity, when suddenly words had no double meaning and the clarion call was a clear as...
the ringing of the holy bells that told of the passing of a true and faithful servant of God.
In my last post I mentioned that when he was raised to the Papacy, I couldn't have been bothered by the news. It's not totally true. My ears did prick up, back in '78, when I had heard the new Pope was Polish. I remember thinking then that all of Italy was going to be up in arms over the selection. But that was it...another old man elected to an old position in an even older Church that had long since been relevant to my mind.
I started going back to Church in the Fall of 1982 (I had been away from the day I made my confirmation at the age of 12 in '73) after I met the young lady who was to become my wife. She was a regular Church-goer and I rightly assumed that if I wanted to be a part of her future I had to participate fully in this part of her life in the present.
The parish we attended for Mass had available for parishoners various catholic oriented magazines and papers and among those I found a copy of Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man).
I started to read it one afternoon and I was knocked agog when I read the following from the chapter "For the Church all ways lead to Man:"
"This man is the way for the Church-a way that, in a sense, is the basis of all the other ways that the Church must walk - because man - every man without any exception whatever - has been redeemed by Christ, and because with man - with each man without any exception whatever - Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: "Christ, who died and was raised up for all, provides man"-each man and every man- "with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme calling."
Now up to this point I believed my self to be lost, forever. But after reading this...I was stunned.
And so...even though I had been taught this, had read this in the Good Book, I had finally heard the Word...I was redeemed whether I liked it or not.
I kinda liked it.
And therefore if I was redeemed, through no effort from myself...then I had a responsiblity to honor that redemption. And to do so I needed to think, reflect, pray, and act with the mind of an adult and not with the nearly lost memory of a pre-pubescent child.
My world spun out of control...I had thought, as many do, that once you lean on the crutch that is religion, you lose your mind...but the opposite happened.
After taking that leap into the abyss that is Faith, my thoughts became clearer. My heart beat wilder and my soul became purer (though some black patches remain).
And I have Karol to thank for helping to nudge me over the edge. I am convinced he became Pope...for me. So that he could tell me once more, about Him.
God calls us in many ways.
Some hear from the moment they can understand. Others hear it from the Bible. Others hear it in the heartbeat of their unborn children, in the crash of the car wreck that almost took their life, in the foxhole...
Others come upon like I did...by the unlikely election of a non-Italian Pope... a chance meeting with a beautiful, pious, young woman...a casual pick-up of a papal encyclical...a once in a lifetime moment of lucidity, when suddenly words had no double meaning and the clarion call was a clear as...
the ringing of the holy bells that told of the passing of a true and faithful servant of God.
posted by Pancho at 11:51 AM
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