The Great

One of the marks of the great events of human history is that you remember where you were when they happened. JFK's assassination, the moon landing, 9/11. When John Paul II died, I was at Walmart picking up (Sister) Susan's glasses. We had been watching CNN for days as he lay dying, praying for him, knowing we were witnessing history. After he died, a friend called to express her condolences. Not a Catholic, she nonetheless knew that losing the leader of our Church would have affected me. It wasn't until then that I really had a chance to reflect on what he had meant to me. I told her he was a spiritual father to me, and I meant it.

I remember Mom telling me once that since JPII was the only pope we had ever known, we couldn't understand that this wasn't the way it always was. The pope wasn't always so visible, so magnetic, so prolific. Yet, as one of the JPII generation, I grew up reading his writings, seeing him in the news, studying his teachings. The second time I saw him in person, in Toronto (maybe the third, if you count WYD 1993, where we barely were close enough to see screens of his face), we were packed in along the barricades, awaiting his arrival. Cheers rang out as the helicopter passed overhead, circling closer. Somehow, I found myself balanced atop a folding sports chair, three rows back, clutching my disposable camera (my real camera's batteries had died the day before. Of course.).

As the popemobile got closer, you could feel his presence. I can't really explain it. It wasn't necessarily a visible thing, but it was tangible, this wave of grace that flowed over the crowd as he passed them by. Even as distracted as I was by trying to snap a picture without falling off my chair, I noticed it. It was like a gentle shock wave, or a bath of warm water. It was the Holy Spirit and the presence of a Saint.

There are other memories I have ("You are young. The pope is old."), and numerous writings and teachings of his that have changed my life. I think what it all came down to, why I'm proud to be a member of his generation, is that as a philosopher and anthropologist, he knew what the human person was created for and how he or she would find fulfillment; and as a pastor, he lovingly demanded that we rise to the challenge. He believed in us, as a race and as individuals. He knew that God would finish what He started in us, and he believed that the time was now. He knew we were made for greatness and wouldn't settle for anything less, especially in his own life. That is truly the Gospel lived.

Saint John Paul II, on your very first official canonized feast day, PRAY FOR US.