A Few Thoughts about John Paul THE GREAT.

I have so many emotions concerning the death of Pope John Paul II. I am sad he is gone; happy he no longer suffers; sure he is in heaven with our Lord and Saints having a terrific time and apprehensive about the future.

Now that he is gone and buried, the sniping has begun.

I am reading that even though he may have been one of the catalysts for bringing down Communism, he was still a failure as a Pope. The usual reasons are cited: the decline in numbers of the priest hood, not allowing female priests, his stand against abortion and artificial birth control and the priest pedophilia scandal.

I think these critics miss the point.

Pope John Paul II was not a failure; WE failed him.

Pope John Paul II gave us everything we needed to live a more Godly life; a life that follows what God wants us to do on earth in order to go to heaven: faith, love and charity. He not only Preached it and wrote about it throughout his life, he most importantly, LIVED IT. He provided an earthly example of what we can do to follow God's will. He did so even though he was an orphan, under the boot of Nazism and then Communism. He provided an example on how to go through life with fewer choices and opportunities than we have, and he did it under the threat of imprisonment and death.

We failed because we did not follow.

He told us NOT TO BE AFRAID, yet we were. We, the Laity, know he was right. We may not like it, therefore, disagree with him and wish for change. But the truth be told, he is right. He warned us of the "culture of death", now it is here. He told us to pray more, but instead, we spend more time and money on other concerns away from God. That is our own fault, not his.

Many were called by God to follow him and serve him in the religious vocations. But they ignored it because they are more comfortable in the world. That is not John Paul's fault, that is their own fault.

The Priests failed him. Many engaged in horrible illicit sexual actions with children instead of being obedient to the will of God. Priest that were aware of this and did nothing to stop it are guilty too of not following God's word to confront and stop sin wherever it is found. That is not John Paul's fault, that is their own fault.

The Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinals that knew about these scandal and did nothing to stop it and even engaged in conspiracy to silence it, are in my opinion, even more sinful. They had the responsibility as "management" to make sure that those below them acted properly in God's word, and they failed. Man will always sin. That is our flesh that fails us. Those single trespasses can be forgiven. But to decide as a group to allow sin to flourish within the church of God is beyond understanding. Again, these "men of God" failed Pope John Paul because they knew better, the Pope did not fail them.

The more I know about the Pope, the more amazed I am of this great person. Between his intellect and well rounded personality, he could have been the richest, most powerful man on earth. Instead, he was the Pope and died with nothing. (His will did not have any possessions that could be distributed to anyone.) But instead, Karol listened to our Lord and followed HIS will. He did something that 99% of us will not do.

So in the end, the Pope did not fail, we failed him, and ultimately, we failed God.

Rest in Peace dear Karol. You deserve it.

A Magic Moment, In a time of Sorrow

In this time of sorrow, a truly magic moment occurred.

My son and I were getting ready to go through the daily grind. We went outside to get into the car. It was a beautiful day. Bright, not too warm or cold.

My son stopped halfway to the car. I started fussing at him; "come on, come on, we have to go, get moving, we are late," I told him. He still stood there, which really aggravated me because he was not listening to me. Before I could really fuss at him, he told me, "mom, the birds are singing! they are singing to God".

I stopped in my tracks and listened. I had not heard the birds, and he was right, they were singing very loud.

I asked him, "what are they saying"?

He told me that they were singing the following: "Hi God! we love you Jesus! We are so happy you are there!"

Then it struck me, how simple and sweet and true.

WE should pray that more often.

Needless to say, I was no longer aggravated.

It was a much better day.