Homily of the Funeral Mass
of Pope John Paul II
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
8-April-2005 A.D.
"Follow me. " The Risen Lord says these words to Peter. They
are his last words to this disciple, chosen to shepherd his flock. "Follow
me" - this lapidary saying of Christ can be taken as the key to
understanding the message which comes to us from the life of our late
beloved Pope John Paul II.
Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality - our
hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time of joyful hope and
profound gratitude.
These are the sentiments that inspire us, Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
present here in Saint Peter's Square, in neighbouring streets and in
various other locations within the city of Rome, where an immense crowd,
silently praying, has gathered over the last few days.
I greet all of you from my heart. In the name of the College of Cardinals,
I also wish to express my respects to Heads of State, Heads of Government
and the delegations from various countries.
I greet the Authorities and official representatives of other Churches
and Christian Communities, and likewise those of different religions.
Next I greet the Archbishops, Bishops, priests, religious men and women
and the faithful
who have come here from every Continent; especially the young, whom
John Paul II
liked to call the future and the hope of the Church.
My greeting is extended, moreover, to all those throughout the world
who are united with us through radio and television in this solemn celebration
of our beloved Holy Father's funeral.
Follow me - as a young student Karol Wojtyla was thrilled by literature,
the theatre, and poetry. Working in a chemical plant, surrounded and
threatened by the Nazi terror, he heard the voice of the Lord: Follow
me! In this extraordinary setting he began to read books of philosophy
and theology, and then entered the clandestine seminary established
by Cardinal Sapieha.
After the war he was able to complete his studies in the faculty of
theology of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków. How often,
in his letters to priests and in his autobiographical books has he spoken
to us about his priesthood, to which he was ordained on 1 November 1946.
In these texts he interprets his priesthood with particular reference
to three sayings of the Lord.
First: "You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed
you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (Jn 15:16). The
second saying is: "The good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep" (Jn 10:11). And then: "As the Father has loved
me, so I have loved you;
abide in my love" (Jn 15:9). In these three sayings we see the
heart and soul of our Holy Father.
He really went everywhere, untiringly, in order to bear fruit, fruit
that lasts.
"Rise, Let us be on our Way!" is the title of his next-to-last
book.
"Rise, let us be on our way!" - with these words he roused
us from a lethargic faith, from
the sleep of the disciples of both yesterday and today. "Rise,
let us be on our way!" he
continues to say to us even today. The Holy Father was a priest to the
last, for he offered
his life to God for his flock and for the entire human family, in a
daily self-oblation for the
service of the Church, especially amid the sufferings of his final months.
And in this way
he became one with Christ, the Good Shepherd who loves his sheep. Finally,
"abide in my
love:" the Pope who tried to meet everyone, who had an ability
to forgive and to open his
heart to all, tells us once again today, with these words of the Lord,
that by abiding in the
love of Christ we learn, at the school of Christ, the art of true love.
Follow me! In July 1958 the young priest Karol Wojty?a began a new
stage in his journey
with the Lord and in the footsteps of the Lord. Karol had gone to the
Masuri lakes for his
usual vacation, along with a group of young people who loved canoeing.
But he brought
with him a letter inviting him to call on the Primate of Poland, Cardinal
Wyszynski. He
could guess the purpose of the meeting: he was to be appointed as the
auxiliary Bishop of
Kraków. Leaving the academic world, leaving this challenging
engagement with young
people, leaving the great intellectual endeavour of striving to understand
and interpret the
mystery of that creature which is man and of communicating to today's
world the Christian
interpretation of our being - all this must have seemed to him like
losing his very self,
losing what had become the very human identity of this young priest.
Follow me - Karol
Wojtyla accepted the appointment, for he heard in the Church's call
the voice of Christ.
And then he realized how true are the Lord's words: "Those who
try to make their life
secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it"
(Lk. 17:33). Our Pope - and we
all know this - never wanted to make his own life secure, to keep it
for himself; he wanted
to give of himself unreservedly, to the very last moment, for Christ
and thus also for us.
And thus he came to experience how everything which he had given over
into the Lord's
hands came back to him in a new way. His love of words, of poetry, of
literature, became
an essential part of his pastoral mission and gave new vitality, new
urgency, new
attractiveness to the preaching of the Gospel, even when it is a sign
of contradiction.
Follow me! In October 1978 Cardinal Wojty?a once again heard the voice
of the Lord. Once
more there took place that dialogue with Peter reported in the Gospel
of this Mass:
"Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep!" To the
Lord's question, "Karol, do
you love me?," the Archbishop of Krakow answered from the depths
of his heart: "Lord you
know everything; you know that I love you." The love of Christ
was the dominant force in
the life of our beloved Holy Father. Anyone who ever saw him pray, who
ever heard him
preach, knows that. Thanks to his being profoundly rooted in Christ,
he was able to bear a
burden which transcends merely human abilities: that of being the shepherd
of Christ's
flock, his universal Church. This is not the time to speak of the specific
content of this rich
pontificate. I would like only to read two passages of today's liturgy
which reflect central
elements of his message. In the first reading, Saint Peter says - and
with Saint Peter, the
Pope himself - "I truly understand that God shows no partiality,
but in every nation anyone
who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know
the message he sent
to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ - he is Lord
of all" (Acts 10:34-36).
And in the second reading, Saint Paul - and with Saint Paul, our late
Pope - exhorts us,
crying out: "My brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for,
my joy and my crown,
stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved" (Phil 4:1). Follow
me! Together with the
command to feed his flock, Christ proclaimed to Peter that he would
die a martyr's death.
With those words, which conclude and sum up the dialogue on love and
on the mandate of
the universal shepherd, the Lord recalls another dialogue, which took
place during the Last
Supper. There Jesus had said: "Where I am going, you cannot come."
Peter said to him,
"Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied: "Where I
am going, you cannot follow me now;
but you will follow me afterward." (Jn. 13:33,36). Jesus from the
Supper went towards the
Cross, went towards his resurrection - he entered into the paschal mystery;
and Peter
could not yet follow him. Now - after the resurrection - comes the time,
comes this
"afterward." By shepherding the flock of Christ, Peter enters
into the paschal mystery, he
goes towards the cross and the resurrection. The Lord says this in these
words: "... when
you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever
you wished. But
when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else
will fasten a belt
around you and take you where you do not wish to go" (Jn. 21:18).
In the first years of his
pontificate, still young and full of energy, the Holy Father went to
the very ends of the
earth, guided by Christ. But afterwards, he increasingly entered into
the communion of
Christ's sufferings; increasingly he understood the truth of the words:
"Someone else will
fasten a belt around you." And in this very communion with the
suffering Lord, tirelessly
and with renewed intensity, he proclaimed the Gospel, the mystery of
that love which goes
to the end (cf. Jn. 13:1).
He interpreted for us the paschal mystery as a mystery of divine mercy.
In his last book, he
wrote: The limit imposed upon evil "is ultimately Divine Mercy"
(Memory and Identity, pp.
60-61). And reflecting on the assassination attempt, he said: "In
sacrificing himself for us
all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension,
a new order: the
order of love ... It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil
with the flame of love and draws forth even from sin a great flowering
of good" (pp. 189-190). Impelled by this vision, the Pope suffered
and loved in communion with Christ, and that is why the message of his
suffering and his silence proved so eloquent and so fruitful. Divine
Mercy: the Holy Father found the purest reflection of God's mercy in
the Mother of God. He, who at an early age had lost his own mother,
loved his divine mother all the more. He heard the words of the crucified
Lord as addressed personally to him: "Behold your Mother."
And so he did as the beloved disciple did: he took her into his own
home" (Jn. 19:27) - Totus tuus. And from the mother he learned
to conform himself to Christ.
None of us can ever forget how in that last Easter Sunday of his life,
the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of
the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi.
We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window
of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us,
Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother,
who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the eternal glory
of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Translation of the Holy See.
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