Walking Up Front

Introduction

A number no one can count

A week ago last Friday (April 8, 2005) we laid to rest the supreme shepherd of the Church—John Paul II. In attendance were 5 kings, 6 queens, 70 heads of state, 115 cardinals, an uncounted number of representatives of the world’s great religions and God’s pilgrim people—a sea of humanity numbering five million strong. The spectacle called to mind the words of Revelation, “I saw before me a huge crowd which no one could count from every nation, race, people and tongue“(Rev. 7:9).

Lying in state

The drama of the papal funeral (called by Larry King “the greatest event ever to take place on Planet Earth”) unfolded on two stages. The first was the imposing basilica of St. Peter’s where the Pope lay in state from Monday, April 4, until the day of the funeral, Friday, April 8. The second stage on which the drama unfolded was the great open air theatre of St. Peter’s Square where the funeral Mass itself took place.

Impressive was the red-robbed body and mitered head of the supreme shepherd with staff in hand, being carried aloft by Vatican gentlemen down the marble corridors of the papal palace out into the sunlit square on its way to the basilica. The procession paused before a sea of humanity, then entered the basilica and made its way to the Altar of the Confession. There the fallen shepherd with crook in hand lay in state for five days under that imposing cupola which dominates the Eternal City.

Way up in the lofty heights of St. Peter’s and looking right down upon the shepherd lying in state were words inscribed in gold mosaic letters six feet tall, both in Latin and in Greek, echoing the pastoral command of Jesus to Peter, the first pope, “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-19).

The cypress coffin

The second stage on which the historic drama unfolded was the immense open-air theatre of St. Peter’s Square with Bernini’s two colossal colonnades of pillars. Like outstretched arms they embraced a river of humanity flowing into the square from the Via Conciliatione-- that long boulevard leading to St. Peter’s. There the funeral Mass took place on a breezy but pleasant spring day in Rome. In the midst of an august congress of kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers and cardinals and bishops, there lay one central magnetic object. It always kept drawing you away from the entire awesome splendor. That was the wooden coffin. It was skillfully crafted with a tongue-in-groove cut. It was lying lonely and uncluttered on the ground with the book of the gospels opened upon it.

The coffin was made of cypress, and it put me in mind of an old Italian expression sotto i cipressi. By that Italians mean “under the cypresses” or “in the cemetery.” If you scan the Italian landscape, you can always catch a glimpse of a cluster of cypresses--long tall tapering evergreen trees pointing like huge fingers upwards toward heaven. What the cluster indicates is that here is the village cemetery where its loved ones lie sleeping.

During that historic funeral on a world stage, nothing had power to distract you from that solitary coffin. As you scanned the splendiferous scene before you--the imposing basilica, the colossal colonnades, the Pentecostal sea of humanity in the square--your eyes were always drawn back to a center of gravity-- the cypress coffin skillfully crafted with a tongue-in-groove cut, lying lonely and uncluttered on the ground. It was without doubt a diamond, and everything else was but a setting for it. All the other images of that historic event, when the world buried a pope, will grow dim but that one will burn on brightly.

Homilies from the tomb

Just like we ordinary people, all the great world leaders in attendance, with their own ideologies and scores to settle against each other, found their eyes drawn again and again to the cypress coffin. Both Jacque Chiraq of France and President Bush of USA kept turning toward it. Both the Israeli and Palestinian representatives kept turning toward it. Both Islamic believers and Western infidels kept turning toward it. From his coffin they heard John Paul preaching a homily or two. Certainly this one: “What I, great globetrotter and rock star that I was--what I am now you will certainly one day be. Just as the Universal Church will carry on without me, so your little spot in the world will carry on without you.”

And other homilies as well they heard emanating from the coffin, like, “Look and see what you can do without any weapons of mass destruction but only with ideas and words and gestures. Look and see what you can do by eating humble pie and confessing your sins, just as I confessed our Catholic sins to Jews and Muslims.” As all those great world leaders, with their own ideologies and scores to settle against each other, gazed upon the cypress coffin, perhaps they momentarily perceived their commonality: all of them called to be human beings through goodness, forgiveness, compassion and peace-making.

Ut quid perditio

Without doubt the stark coffin stole the show, and it stood in sharp contrast to everything else that day. In sharp contrast to the splendor of the imposing basilica and the awesome stage upon which the drama unfolded. It stood in sharp contrast to the flashy Swiss guards and to the cardinals’ bright red robes swirling in the wind and to their lofty miters reminding you of their high positions. At the end of the day, the stark coffin stood in sharp contrast to all the financing it took to choreograph that magnificent event and to buy the airplane tickets to attend it.

Perhaps our second reaction to this great “production” was that of the disciples who asked Jesus one day, “Ut quid perditio haec?” “Why all this waste?” One day when Jesus was in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. She lavished it upon Jesus’ head as he was eating. The disciples saw this and became angry and cried out, “Ut quid perdition haec?” “Why all this waste? This perfume could have been sold for a good price, and the money could have been given to the poor.” Aware of their grumbling, Jesus said to them, “Why are you giving this woman a hard time? She has done something beautiful to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this costly perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial” (Mt 26:6-12).

“Why all this waste?” I reflected on that as I watched the splendiferous papal funeral unfold before me. And this is my reflection: In this messy world of ours, some of us, and maybe many of us, daily see very little splendor but only heaps of garbage strewn all over the place (and no city in a working-mode to fix the problem and haul it away). In this crude world of ours, practitioners of the outrageous wiggle their rear-ends and bare their breasts and wear their pants below their knees so their underwear sticks out. In this graceless world of ours, the movements are jerky and frantic and the sounds are cacophonous and jarring. In this tough world of ours, dog eat dog and I come first and you come last. In this chaotic world of ours, the lack of a magnetic center of attraction sends us running off into mindless directions. In such a world like this, I say, “Thank you, Lord, not only for the simple cypress coffin but also for that splendiferous papal funeral. It was a glimpse of the City of God—the heavenly Jerusalem. Like the cypress coffin, it too preached a homily. To a watching world it said, “This is what your city should look like.”

It, too, should abound with the same order, symmetry and design which abounded in St. Peter’s Square that day. The city of man, too, should abound with the same gracefulness which radiated from the swinging arms of the Swiss Guards and the measured steps of papal gentlemen carrying their sacred weight on their shoulders in St. Peter’s Square that day. The city of man, too, should abound with gestures of love, respect and reverence, with bows of heads and kisses of peace, with incensations of human beings and genuflections before the sacred, just as these things abounded in St. Peter’s Square that day. The city of man, too, should abound with rich robes and finery to veil the wonderful mystery of the human body, just as all the actors were beautifully bedecked in St. Peter’s Square that day. The city of man, too, should slow down, catch its breath and take its time to do justice to what is important, just as everybody was taking his time (three hours of it) in St. Peter’s Square that day.

Thank you, Lord, not only for that simple cypress coffin but also for that splendiferous papal funeral. It was a vision of the City of God--the heavenly Jerusalem. Like the cypress coffin, it too preached a homily. To a watching world it said, “This is what your city should look like.”

In John’s spot

After the Mass the body of John Paul was carried in private ceremony to the grotto below the basilica. There it was placed in the very burial spot where the remains of Good Pope John XXIII had once lain. His body had been exhumed and carried up to the basilica for the occasion of his beatification in 2001. There it could more easily accommodate the great number of pilgrims who visit his tomb every year. That spot vacated by John XXIII and now occupied by John Paul II was called by one commentator “a good piece of real estate,” for it is very close to burial site of St. Peter himself. Last Wednesday, April 13, that final resting place of John Paul II was opened to another river of humanity.

Leadership up front

The drama is still not over. The Church is sede vacante right now. No one is sitting on the Chair of Peter. The conclave to elect a new shepherd will begin tomorrow (Monday, April 18, at 4:30 p. m. Rome time, and 9:30 a.m. our time) in the Sistine chapel after a public Mass in St. Peter’s Square. 115 cardinals will lock themselves in and will lock the world out (con clave), and they will take a solemn oath before Michelangelo’s Last Judgment to choose one whom they think will make a good shepherd.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is always dedicated to the theme of the Good Shepherd. (Look at the cover of your missalette.) The gospel readings for all three cycles are all taken from the tenth chapter of St. John, which abounds with the many qualities of a good shepherd. Today’s reading singles one of those qualities: “A good shepherd is one who walks up front” (Jn 10:4). It’s an interesting stroke to paint into a picture of a good shepherd: a good shepherd walks up front and the sheep come running after him. Up front leadership is doing something so attractive “up there” that you can trust that the sheep “back there” are going to want to follow you. The opposite is leadership from behind. That’s leadership mostly by means of directives, commands and threats. That’s leadership by the weight of authority. Leadership from behind drives the sheep, but leadership up front draws them.

John XXIII "up front"

When Pope Pius XII died on the 9^th of October, 1958, the Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Roncalli, went to Rome and entered the conclave to elect the next pope on the 25^th of October. He came out of the conclave three days later as Pope John XXIII. For five short wonderful and refreshing years, we enjoyed up-front leadership from Good Pope John. On the day of his coronation, the 4^th of Nov. 1958, against protocol, he rose to say a few words. He remarked how everybody has his own idea of what the new pope should be. “I have my own idea,” he said. “It is the image of the good shepherd who came not to be served but to serve.“ The next day he put his money where his mouth was: he sped out of wrought iron Vatican gates to visit brother priests in nursing homes and prisoners in Roman jails. That was up front leadership and his church was magnetically drawn to it.

Shortly after his election he set a sober and serious church laughing. This rather rotund man, whom you could never picture skiing, told people that the recent papal election had not been a beauty contest. When someone asked him one day how many people work in the Vatican, he replied, “About half.” That was up-front leadership, and a church, which hadn’t laughed for four hundred years, was magnetically drawn to it.

Good Pope John had the courage to summon the Church to Vatican II even though that was going to rock the Bark of Peter and disturb the peace of the church which really wasn’t peace at all. On October 11, 1962, he opened the Second Vatican Council in the great nave of St. Peter’s with a magnificent ceremonial and inspired discourse. That evening from the window of the papal apartment, which TV panned over and over again for us these past three weeks, he looked down upon the throngs joyfully gather in St. Peter’s Square for a torchlight procession. After speaking warmly, he bid them all go home and kiss their children for him. That was up-front leadership and the church was magnetically drawn to it.

Conclusion

The Holy Spirit blowing in the wind

I think there’s something providential in Pope John Paul‘s burial in Pope John’s spot. Perhaps it is the Holy Spirit blowing in the wind, calling the cardinals’ attention to that good man. Perhaps it is the Holy Spirit blowing in the wind, encouraging the cardinals to continue Pope John’s legacy by choosing one with the courage to call a Vatican III. Perhaps it is the Holy Spirit blowing in the wind, inspiring the cardinals to choose a good shepherd who will walk up front for us.