John Paul II The Great

Today the ninth and final novena Mass will mark the end of the official mourning period for JPII.
JPII was a man like any other but unlike any other. He made mistakes, he sinned, he went to confession.
Gifted to be sure. In the office of the Papacy he embodied with flesh and blood that unity of the Church Universal in a visible and concrete form.

But the response the past two weeks can not be explained away simply in terms of a charasmatic personality. I see the response primarily as a testament to his ability to open up a dialouge with modern man, that all that modern man sought could only be found in the person of Christ. The theological and philosphical treatment of the dignity of man made in the image and likeness of God was most clearly articulated by JPII . His expression of "Christian personalism" is grounded in seeing the human subject not as an object, not as an "it", but as a "thou". That all human beings are called by virtue of their creation in the likeness of the Holy Trinity to a self-giving exchange of love is the basis of his catechesis (the converse of course being the use of another as an object of pleasure, or simply an object to be used or conformed or destroyed by personal whim). This example of self-giving was most clearly demonstrated in the Incarnation and self-giving of God Himself for our salvation, which provides us with the grace through the merit of Christ to become "Christ-like", to sacrificially give ourselves to others. To in essence become truly human. All of this teaching toward the end of the bloodiest of centuries that reaped (and continues to reap) the consequences of a secularism and an atheistic humanism which teaches of "a man without need of God", which has led to dehumanization and exploitation of the human person in almost every conceivable form.

Certainly JPII did not teach anything "new", for it its as "old" as Genesis and as fresh as the four Gospels. He gave a mankind fraught with confusion and starving for some sense of meaning (post-failure of the "cult of man")-- HOPE, a hope that was based on the person and work of Christ as he bore witness to the Gospel by his travels and preaching throughout the whole world. Modern man listened to that message to varying degrees during his pontificate. Some have responded. Many have not responded. I believe that he left Christians a practical foundation for engaging and evangelizing a post-modern culture. I pray that we will see much greater fruit of his sacrificial self-giving in the coming decades.