Today we honour the memory of Saint John Paul II, whom we all knew to some degree, and some of us had met. Without doubt Pope John Paul’s teaching and example led many to faith. His exceptional apostolic zeal, particularly for families, young people and the sick, led him to make numerous pastoral visits throughout the world. Among the many fruits which he has left as a heritage to the Church are above all his rich Magisterium and the promulgation of the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as the Code of Canon Law. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2014 and his feast falls on the anniversary of his election to the papacy. History will remember him as one of the great popes of our time, if not of all time. Today we ask his intercession and protection for the Universal Church.
It should be a great consolation for us to remember that the greatest of the saints were as human as we are. Like us they had to struggle, they became discouraged, despondent, and confused, and ultimately, they had to depend completely on God. Something Pope Saint John Paul II did each day.
The first reading clearly shows a man who is struggling hard to become a better person. St. Paul was discouraged by an apparent lack of progress in his spiritual life. Above all he became confused. How could this be, he wondered, when all he wanted to do was good and yet all that seemed to come out of him was evil. I suspect that the same happens to all of us. Perhaps we see clearly enough that we have to be a little more loving towards a particular person, or that we must give up our rash judgement of other people and their motives. It may even be that we hate within ourselves a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude without being able to do much to overcome it. Why is it that we seem to make such little progress?
St. Paul cries out: “Who can free me from this body under the power of death?” His answer is only implicit at the conclusion of the passage when he says: “All praise to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” From later parts of the letter, it becomes clear that Paul turns in praise to God because he knows that only God can help by the power of the Holy Spirit. The real problem is that we tend to depend too much on ourselves, rather than God, to have the attitude that we are the ones who must accomplish our progress rather than placing ourselves completely in God’s hands.
Ordinary people like us become saints not by our own efforts but by being open to God’s grace. It is God who will make all the difference in our lives if only we are willing to allow him to enter in and do his work within us.
Dum Tacet Clamat 