Monday, December 8, 2008

John Paul the Great

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

John Paul the Great
Sunday, 04 10, 2005

A week ago the Holy Father Pope John Paul II left the world in grace. Millions of people, Catholic or not, mourned the loss of this great leader who has become an icon of humanity for the past 26 years of his pontificate.

The globe-trotting pontiff made a great dent in the history of religion, and even of politics. Here was a pope who did not have the serenity to accept things as they were -instead, he tried to change the things that he could not accept. Presidents, prime ministers, and kings - and millions of once-oppressed people - will remember him as one of the few great political giants of our age, a man of physical and moral courage more responsible than any other for bringing down the oppressive, anti-human Communism of Eastern Europe.

He lived by Christ’s example and embodied what it is to be a true advocate of God: one possessed of a firm commitment to the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings; one who readily forgave those who had faults against him, including a failed assassin; one who showed great love for all peoples regardless of race, color, and creed. This is the reason people now call him posthumously as “John Paul the Great” and a “living saint” when he was still alive. Scarcely had the solemn strains of the hymns at his funeral died when the exuberant voice of the faithful who gathered at St. Peter’s Square rose to ask for his speedy canonization.

Saint or not, his life was an activist example of how to live a life well. His commitment to peace and fighting poverty and communism, and support for human rights and dignity heightened the Solidarity movement in his native Poland and later on to the fall of the control of the pro-Soviet regimes over half of the European continent. His pilgrimage to the Holy Land helped heal the festering wounds of the ages-old enmity and distrust between Christians and Jews. Acknowledging the Jews as “our elder siblings,” he apologized to them for a previous pope’s calculated indifference toward the Jews when they were being persecuted by the Nazis during World War II. He took the diplomatic effort in easing tensions between the two predominantly Catholic countries of Argentina and Chile, thereby preventing them from starting a war. When he traveled through several Islamic countries, he called for peace in the Holy Land, and made clear his strong opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He invited Muslims and those of other faiths to Assisi to pray together for world peace.

Pope John Paul II has made it to the list of many Papal firsts and legacies. He was the first non-Italian pope since 1523. And more remarkable and tradition-breaking were his official visits to non-Catholic institutions - a mosque in Damascus and a synagogue in Rome - and his statement in 2000, where he asked forgiveness for many of the Catholic Church’s past sins, the first time in the Church’s history that its leader has admitted to the fallibility of some predecessors. Here was a pope who walked in the shoes of the Fisherman - the Apostle Peter, the first pope - whose most striking characteristic was his frequent and humble confession that he was wrong. But John Paul II had not been wrong about the 482 saints and 1,338 beatified followers of Christ that were proclaimed during his papacy. And over a hundred visits to countries all over the world were the most that any other Pope had ever done. His visit to the Philippines in 1995 for the World Youth Day, his second after an earlier visit in 1981, drew the attendance of approximately five million people, the biggest crowd that ever gathered for him while he was alive, perhaps only to be equaled by the mass of humanity from all over the world who came to Vatican to view him in death.

For Karol Wojtyla, the papacy was not a job; it was a joy. He accepted the Pontificate without any reservations, performed his duties wholeheartedly and with due commitment, and, best of all, exceeded the expectations of the people even when the burdens of age and illness began to weigh heavily on him.
Last Friday, the world witnessed the final moments of the great Pope as he was laid to rest in the Vatican. The mighty and the lowly of every color, race, and religion from over 200 countries came to his funeral in an awesome display of love, respect, and support for someone who had been an advocate of peace and humanity. They continue to mourn, but many shall also rejoice for he has returned to God’s Kingdom where he has earned a special place, and where he shall also continue to bless the people around the world.

The greatness of a person is not measured by his achievements alone, but also by how he has lived his life, how he has made use of the blessings that were given him. But by whichever we would measure him up, Pope John Paul II was indeed a great man – one who possessed utmost determination and strength of character, displayed profound faith and courage towards controversial issues, and most importantly, touched each and every person’s heart. He earned the respect of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, simply because he lived and led by example, just as any person should.

Pope John Paul II’s legacy shall continue to live in years to come. His papacy - the 129 trips he took to 104 countries - has shown us that one who deploys principles instead of sending out troops holds a greater power, the power of moral force.

And so it seems hypocritical for us, the only predominantly Catholic country in Asia, to make an ostentatious show of honoring this great man by sending a planeload of Filipino mourners (at the public’s expense) while the government continues to maintain an immoral indifference to the plight of the poor and the oppressed.

There seems to be no other solution for the country’s ills but to begin again, to start in the same way as the Church did 2,000 years ago - as a minority hunkered in the gloom of the catacombs, steadily gaining adherents because it was different from the cruel society that surrounded it. It is no accident that the Church referred to itself by the word ekklesia, which referred to the wide-open assembly, the world’s first participatory democracy, initiated by the people of Athens. What we need perhaps is a home-grown ekklesia that, like the early Christians, will start out in the wretched hovels of our countrysides until it spreads out like the ever-widening ripples of a pebble dropped into a pond, permitting participation of all its members in a society that acts not out of political power but only out the power of love for all as equal children of God.


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