Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - The whole Catholic flock mourns its Shepherd, Pope John Paul II. The entire missionary Church, starting with the Congregation’s staff in Rome, the local Bishops around the world, clergy, missionaries in every mission territory of the world, very distant geographically but never far from Pope John Paul II’s concern and prayers, are grieving for the Pope who, in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, “became everything to everyone”, spending himself
in his burning desire to carry the news of Jesus Christ, Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, to the ends of the earth.
In the many crucial moments of history during this long pontificate, John Paul II never failed to announce the Gospel to use all our energy to spread the Word of Salvation, to be missionaries among peoples who had never heard that Word and also in the new marketplaces of the modern world, dismissing any temptation to be discouraged or lose heart in the knowledge that only in the Lord can our travailed world find the answer to its anxieties. The Pope’s lengthy and rich Teaching unequivocally shaped modern missionary work opening new paths, pointing to new horizons, new fields in which to sow the Gospel faithfully fulfilling Christ’s command to teach all nations. The missionary heritage he leaves us is certainly the Encyclical “Redemptoris Missio”, rightly said to be the Magna Charta of mission in the third Christian millennium, but all his writings and his speeches to Bishops on ad limina visits are interwoven with the same vibrant exhortation to proclaim the Risen Lord without hesitation because the Good News is a gift for those with whom it is shared and its proclamation increases the faith of those who share it.
But John Paul II was not only a Master of mission. With his tireless reaching out to people “ad gentes” he did not hesitate to travel to the most remote mission posts, to tiny communities newly founded or re-emerging from long periods of oppression, to meet the men and women missionaries who spend their lives for Christ and for those peoples to whom they are sent in His name. The poor, the sick, the elderly, prisoners, the disabled were John Paul’s favourites and he embraced them all with tender affection so they could experience the presence of God, the Father of all men and women. And these very multitudes in slums, long stay clinics, in the most forgotten places shared intensely the final stages of the Holy Father’s illness, enveloping him in a warm embrace of prayer and affection. This was how the poor accompanied towards the final encounter the Father, the Pope who had so often shown them the way to the Kingdom.
This Pope of great evangelising commitment and apostolic journeys all over the world began his service as Bishop of Rome with the words: “Open, indeed fling open the doors to Christ!”. He was speaking on the steps of St Peter’s on 22 October 1978, at the inaugural Mass for the start of his service as universal Shepherd, having been elected on 16 October, successor of Paul VI and John Paul I. He was 58 years old and came from Krakow in Poland.
His pontificate of just over 26 years, which bridged the 20th and 21st centuries, leaves to the Church and to the world an impressive heritage almost impossible to summarise. Major events included two Holy Years, the special Holy Year of the Redemption 1983-1984 to mark 1,950 years since the year 33 AD and the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000; the Year of the Rosary and this latest Year of the Eucharist, which has coincided with the conclusion of his pontificate; 14 Encyclicals, and hundreds of apostolic Letters, Exhortations, Messages, Speeches at Audiences; 104 pastoral journeys in 129 different countries all over the world, at the invitation of the different peoples of the earth. He convoked and presided special assemblies of the Synod of Bishops to discuss and address situations on the different continents with the Bishops of Africa, Asia, America, Oceania and Europe.
A Pope who laboured to promote the unity of Christians, to build peace and to dialogue with the whole world, but a Pope marked by suffering: an assassination attempt on 13 May 1981, from which he narrowly and miraculously escaped and slow relentless advance of illness and old age. Nevertheless he bore his pain patiently transforming it into a living catechesis on the value of suffering, continuing his pastoral work including exhausting meetings to the limits of physical resistance, he set eloquent examples of dedication, especially for young people. The landmark encounter with over 2 million young people who came to Rome in 2000 for World Youth Day.
A Pope who six years in advance in 1994, called the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and celebrated it with four major events: January 25, the ecumenical ‘six-handed’ opening of the Holy Door at St Paul’s Basilica, with the Orthodox Archbishop envoy of the Patriarch Constantinople and the Anglican Primate Archbishop of Canterbury; 16 March, the Day of the “Purification of Memory”, at the foot of the Cross in St Peter’s, when he asked forgiveness for the sins committed by the sons and daughters of the Church in the past; his long desired journey to the Holy Land, in April; 7 May, the landmark ecumenical Celebration of the Martyr Witnesses to the Faith of the 20th Century at the Colosseum in Rome.
A Pope “who came from afar” after decades of courageous resistance against Poland’s atheist regime and lived “extraordinary events” such as the 1989 collapse of communism and walls in Europe and closed the Holy Door after the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to celebrate 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, with his confident call of hope for the future and for mission in the third millennium echoing the words of the Saviour: “Duc in altum! Put out into the deep!”. Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe (Agenzia Fides 3/4/2005)
