The CatholiCity Message

Volume IX, Number 4 – April 2, 2005

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

Our beloved Holy Father has crossed the threshold of hope. We're going to pray together after sharing a few initial themes below. We will keep you informed in the News and Commentary section in CatholiCity:

http://www.catholicity.com/news/

THE SOUND OF HIS VOICE
For those of us under the age of forty, John Paul II was the only pope we ever really knew. For a surprisingly large number of us, he was the only pope we ever met or saw in person. For virtually all of us, he was the singular face of the Catholic Church during our adult lives. We measured our lives with him by decades.

He was the pope of our lives. He loved us. We loved him.

We heard the sound of his voice often, and even now, in the silence, we cannot forget it. May his words, "Be not afraid! Come to Christ!" echo in our ears when our breathing, too, becomes thin and our flesh fails us.

THE POPE WHO SKIIED
John Paul II uniquely humanized the papacy via his relentless penchant for travel, his embrace of modern media, and the force of his personality. We came to love this man the way most of us experienced our own fathers–from the vigor of their prime to the growing fragility of physical decline.

In recent centuries, perhaps because his predecessors, for whatever practical or prudential reasons, chose to not wear the leather off their shoes so publicly, it was understandable for Catholics to perceive the papacy primarily through the lens of the Chair of Peter, that is, with an emphasis on the magisterial authority of the office these men occupied. Pius XII infallibly defined the Assumption of Mary. Pope John XXIII initiated Vatican II. Pope Paul VI was the Humanae Vitae pope.

If we came to know previous popes through their works, then we came to love John Paul II through his quirks. We will never forget that he was the one who skiied.

Our earliest popes worked, dined, ruled, and were usually slaughtered alongside the handfuls of Christians they shepherded in early Rome. As with those early popes, John Paul was the first modern pope to actively expose us so openly to his very self. He ensouled his own proclamation of Christ's teaching on the dignity and uniqueness of the individual human person.

WHITE SMOKE, PRESENT TENSE
As from the upside-down martyrdom of Saint Peter, with the singularly unequivocal writ of this particular man's death, the Holy Spirit has willed for His Catholic Church a new life through a new particular man–a man already walking this earth (a man even now unlikely to be certain of his approaching destiny, if the testimony of other about-to-be-elected popes is our guide). Let us join our prayers and mourning for the soul of John Paul II to our enthusiastic anticipation and gratitude for his successor, the next Peter with the power to bind and loose on earth and heaven.

We know John Paul II loved Mary, so let all the tens of thousands of us fittingly pray together one Hail Mary for his soul, and affirm our faith in his successor by reciting the Apostles Creed, and do so in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...

"Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified; died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."

Thank you. We'll be in touch soon.

With Christ,

Your Friends at CatholiCity