OUR LADY OF FATIMA 

CATHOLIC CHURCH

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

"Watch, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (cf. Matt 24:42) -- these words remind me of the last call, which will occur at the moment the Lord wills it. I want to follow Him and I want all that forms part of my earthly life to prepare me for this moment. I do not know when it will occur, but like everything, I also place this moment in the hands of the Mother of my Master: 'Totus Tuus.' I leave everything in the same maternal hands, and all those who have been connected to my life and my vocation. Above all, I leave the Church in these hands, and also my Nation and the whole of humanity. I thank all. I ask all for forgiveness. I also ask for prayer, so that God's Mercy will show itself greater than my weakness and unworthiness."

Pope John Paul II’s
Last Will & Testament

In the early hours of this morning (Friday April 8) I have again been following the events of the final journey of the Pope. Not even a week since the news that John Paul II was in critical condition and now viewing the last moments before his interment in St. Peter’s Basilica. An English politician once observed that "a week in politics is a very long time" ...What a week in the life of the Church !

Reading the Pope’s last will and testament is like leafing through the pages of time of almost three decades. The struggles within the Church:

"The times, in which we live, are unspeakably difficult and disquieting. The way of the Church has also become difficult and tense, characteristic trial of these times -- both for the Faithful as well as for the Pastors. In some countries the Church finds herself in such a period of persecution that is not inferior to that of the first centuries, rather it exceeds them by the degree of ruthlessness and hatred."

The struggles within the world:

The last decade of the last century was free from the preceding tensions; this does not mean that it did not bring with it new problems and difficulties. In a particular way may Divine Providence be praised for this, that the period of the so-called "Cold War" finished without violent nuclear conflict, which danger weighed on the world in the preceding period.

History has been lived, not merely made; and, as he points out, we are not free from problems that continue to beset our world. One striking feature of the funeral, though, and one that cannot be ignored: in former times a papal funeral meant that Catholic Heads of State would attend to pay their last respects. Here the world community came, from the four corners of the globe, not merely citizens of the world, but also their leaders as never seen before. Leaders, who in political spheres are in some cases sworn mortal enemies, united in a common cause: honoring a man who had united them by his death.

One commentator (and Heaven knows we have been barraged by them this week) said that John Paul II "reached out with a kind of humanism" which reached to every ethnic and religious background. The power of his message was evidenced by the world’s response to his call. They came to Rome in their millions, they watched the funeral in their billions !

St Thomas Aquinas observed that "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it" I,1 art 8 ad 2. We must pray that those who came to pay their last respects from a natural motive will have their souls infused with Divine Grace that they may now be moved to embrace the Faith with a supernatural motive of charity. It is not now "in place of" humanism, but "upon" the humanism that ties our secular leaders together that even these poor bricks can be fashioned to fit the House of the Lord. Salvation of souls is not the mission of the Church to the few, nor yet to the many, but to all ! This is the secret that many forget and especially the traditional pharisees of our time. How can we come through Lent, witnessing the closed hearts of the religious leaders of Our Lord’s day in the daily gospels of that season, and not wonder at the pharisaical scandals that can be seen in the hearts and lives of many who claim to adhere to Tradition ?

The Pope acknowledged the duty of the Church, of himself, to draw all the world to Christ, to salvation, in his will:

"Accepting this death already now, I hope that Christ will give me the grace for the last passage, that is [my] Pasch. I hope that he will render it useful also for this most important cause which I seek to serve: the salvation of men, the safeguarding of the human family, and in it of all the nations and peoples."

No man in any position of authority within the Church can ever expect to please everyone. There are always people ready to tear down and contradict. They do so, usually, from a personal sense of insecurity; to destroy one’s neighbor’s reputation is usually the action of one who is not happy with their own short-comings. The action of a Christ-follower (the definition of a Christian) is to be man enough to acknowledge one’s own unworthiness and to ask pardon of others for our faults. These are the Dominus non sum dignus (Lord I am not worthy) moments of our life. As the Pope wrote again:

"I thank all. I ask all for forgiveness. I also ask for prayer, so that God's Mercy will show itself greater than my weakness and unworthiness."

Parenthetically I might add, in connection with this thought, that one lady (not a parishioner !) sought to barrage me with her vitriol this week by telephone and electronic mail spewing calumnies and hatred against the Pope and damning me to hell (no less) for supporting a "notorious heretic" and so forth. Comparing and contrasting such behavior with the words of Our Lord himself at the Last Supper:

"That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Jn 17:21

And again:

"A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. Jn 13:34

I find such an attitude clearly wanting in the unity and charity Our Lord willed for His Church.

Death, even the death of the Pope, reminds us all of our mortality – we shall not live for ever. The thought of approaching death is salutary, it keeps us on the "straight and narrow" in our journey to heaven. The Pope referred to the thought of death and its spiritual value:

"Everyone should have present the prospect of death. And must be ready to present himself before the Lord and Judge -- and, contemporaneously, Redeemer and Father. I also take this into consideration continually, entrusting that decisive moment to the Mother of Christ and of the Church -- to the Mother of my hope."

Life is all but brief and our time upon this earth is, as the Catechism reminds us, "to know, love and serve the Lord, that we might be happy with him for all eternity". After the attempt on his life in 1981, John Paul II re-dedicated his remaining days to God as we must do:

On the day of May 13, 1981, the day of the attempt on the Pope during the General Audience in St. Peter's Square, Divine Providence saved me in a miraculous way from death. He who is the sole Lord of life and death, He himself prolonged this life, in a certain way he has given it to me again. From this moment it again belongs even more to Him. I hope He will help me to recognize how long I must continue this service, to which he called me on the day of October 16, 1978. I ask him to call me when He himself wills it. "In life and in death we belong to the Lord ... we are the Lord's" (cf. Rm 14:8).

In all the vicissitudes of life we have a constant "Ark from the ocean’s roar". Much has been made of the Pope’s devotion to Mary. Years ago, it was his devotion to her, reading his encyclical Redemptoris Mater and other writings that inspired in me a great love of the Blessed Virgin. She who brought the dawn of salvation among us has led him forth (last Saturday – First Saturday) to what we pray will be the forgiveness and joy of Divine Mercy itself.

"To all I wish to say one thing: "May God reward you"

"In manus Tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum""
(Into Thy hands Lord I commend my Spirit)

Most Reverend Terence R. Fulham

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