Kneeling

“Here is Christ, Please!” (Pope Saint John Paul II).

Corpus Christi John Paul II (2004)

I have been thinking about Pope Saint John Paul II.

This was a truly extraordinary man.  By the time that he was elected to the Pontificate, he had no living relatives.  His entire family had already died and he was alone in the world with the exception of God the angels and the Saints.  When he was elected as Pope on the third day of the conclave in 1978, Pope Saint John Paul II was only fifty-eight years old and was the youngest pope in over one hundred years.  He was also the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.  He was Polish and had lived through both the Second World War and the atrocities of the Holocaust and Communism in Easter Europe and the atrocities there…

As he was such a young pope, Pope Saint John Paul II travelled extensively throughout his pontificate and was able to remain very active until his very old age.  This Pope developed Parkinson’s disease and died in 2005.  Parkinson’s Disease caused the Saint to tremble and shudder and distorted his physical appearance and speech.  However, he remained firmly in love with Our Lord…

Pope Saint John Paul II had a great devotion to the Blessed Eucharist.  In 2004, about a year before he died, the Pope was travelling in his last Corpus Christi procession.  He could no longer walk and was helped to his place on the platform by Archbishop Marini and Monsignor Konrad Krajewski.  The Monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament inside it was placed in front of him in the procession.  Monsignor Krajewski recalls that at one point the Pope motioned for him to step forward.  He told the Monsignor (in Polish) “I want to kneel down.”  Caught off-guard, the Monsignor did not know how to reply as it was physically impossible for the Pope to kneel in his condition.  He told the Pope that the car was shaking too much for him to kneel.  The Pope repeated, “I want to kneel down.”  The Monsignor responded that they would need to wait a little longer.  Finally, as they approached their final destination, the Pope said loudly, “Here is Christ, Please!”  With this final request, the Monsignor and the Archbishop assisted the Pope to kneel for a moment (he was too old and frail and disabled to kneel for longer than this).  That was the last time that the Saint was able to kneel in this lifetime…

I have been reflecting on this beautiful story since I first heard it.  For it seems to me that I am perfectly capable of kneeling and I have forgotten to see that “Here is Christ, Please!”

For I am told…  “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” (John 6:51-58).

“Here is Christ, Please!”

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.