In April 2005, Rome witnessed what could be called the largest public demonstration of thanksgiving in the history of humanity. At the time of John Paul II’s funeral, millions of people from different parts of the world decided to come to Rome. Many spent over ten hours in the queue in order to have a few seconds near the tomb of the Holy Father. This thanksgiving continued to be seen in the huge numbers of pilgrims who have come and have passed by his tomb in a steady stream. It is as if people are showing their appreciation of his total dedication, in the name of Christ and as successor of Saint Peter, to the men and women of his times.
Throughout his long pontificate, Pope John Paul II invited all the faithful to accept their call to holiness. He encouraged them to live authentic Christian lives; to safeguard and transmit Christ’s truth to today’s world; to fully recognise that they belong to a mystery of communion, a true sensus ecclesiae; to follow the missionary calling that pertains to the Christian vocation; to embrace in charity the needs of people and nations.
It would be impossible to mention here all the new ideas, events, documents, images, journeys and challenges that filled the 26 years of his pontificate. We in the Pontifical Council for the Laity like to point out that the Pope “who came from afar” was already very well known and esteemed by us because of his many years as consultor to the Consilium de Laicis (see photo below). We recall his amiable visit to our offices soon after the start of his pontificate. In the years that followed, there were regular audiences and meetings in which he advised and inspired the service and programmes of our dicastery. We all remember the vitality with which he evangelised young people. He “invented” World Youth Day and always took part as a father, teacher and friend to young people, stretching his energies to the limit. We remember how he called a synod on the vocation and mission of the laity. He followed this up with a post-synodal apostolic exhortation Christifidelis Laici which came out in 1988. Now, over twenty years after its publication, it is still the Charta Magna of the Catholic laity. We also remember him as the Pope who wrote the first magisterial document entirely dedicated to the dignity and vocation of women. He sang the praises of the “feminine genius”, and clarified ideas on how the identity of the male and the female enrich the meaning of human. Another landmark was his decision to call together the ecclesial movements and new communities in May 1998. On that occasion, he addressed hundreds of thousands of adherents with words of welcome, affection and encouragement. Since the beginning of his pontificate, he had always spoken warmly to them, saying that they were “providential”. We recall his apostolic journeys, his pilgrimages to countries far and near. He visited the spiritual capitals, the Marian shrines. He spoke directly to the people, addressing the poor in a special way, and embraced all in caritas Christi! We also call to mind the meetings he held during the great Jubilee, with young people, families, workers, business people, university students, politicians and artists, so that they would bring Christ into every area of human activity. We remember him as he suffered, bravely facing a long and difficult illness, reminding us all of Christ’s suffering for our redemption.
John Paul II was acutely aware of the importance of the Council for the Church at the start of the third millennium. It is “the foundation and beginning of the huge work of evangelisation of the modern world, at a time when a new crossroads has been reached in the history of humanity, and in which the Church must address tasks of immense gravity and magnitude” (JOHN PAUL II, Address to participants in the 6th Symposium of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe, 11 October 1985). He did not fail to call the laity to be committed to the task of the new evangelisation, with new enthusiasm and new methods and presentations. He helped us to understand that the mission of evangelisation is not simply a task added on to Christian experience. It is the energetic communication of the extraordinary gift of an encounter with Christ shared with gratitude and joy from person to person and family to family, and from community to community. He asked lay people to be engaged in building up a society more worthy of humanity, and to show the beauty and dignity of marriage and family. He asked young people to be “sentinels of daybreak”. He urged everyone to be committed to education, culture, communications, the world of work and social construction, and the public life of nations. He encouraged us to “open wide the doors to Christ” in every sphere of public life, and to tear down walls of injustice, falsehood and oppression. He strengthened the unity of the Church and adhesion to the truth, and he enhanced and relaunched the social doctrine of the Church. He also directed a new presence and voice in the new international scene that was emerging.
The Church, with this beatification, officially recognises that he was totally rooted in Christ, and presents him as a role model. His gaze was always on the face of the Lord in the depth of the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption. What he asked of all the faithful, he had first done himself, and this could be seen. He knew that Christianity could not be reduced to spiritual sentiment or religious ideology, nor be used simply in order to find the moral, social, cultural and political consequences of faith, presenting it in ways that are less and less realistic. His pontificate was a robust call to all the baptised to humbly implore God’s grace, as he himself did, in order to be able to meet Jesus, and to do so with the same reality, newness and power of persuasion and affection that marked Jesus’ encounter with his first disciples on the banks of the Jordan.
For all of these reasons, we are grateful to God for the gift he gave to the Church and humanity in the extraordinary Blessed John Paul II. We entrust to his intercession the Church of our times, the intentions of Pope Benedict XVI and our daily task in encouraging and accompanying the lay faithful in living in dignity and in carrying out their mission.
