The funeral tomorrow

I read an interesting article just now about a more personal Pope. A man can do great things - for instance help lower the iron curtain - but it is still the small things he does, the personal warmth, that makes him worth memorializing. His photographer likes to say that "he became a child with young people."

So why are four million people trying to crowd past his bier? I think it may be that this was a man completely unafraid. He had in his youth seen the worst things humanity had ever put on offer, and yet wrote a book on it called "Crossing the Threshold of Hope." It was John Paul's refusal to be afraid, either in the face of communists, kings, or even infirmity and old age, that gave him the holiness people felt certain he had. And people in this world are afraid and maybe they are hoping this man's fearlessness will rub off on them.

As for me, I am basking in the CNN coverage. I begin to realize the real value of belonging to a religion that is ancient; the religion has a culture. I realized this as I saw a red robed Cardinal singing in Italian, for I knew what he was singing - the ancient litany of the saints; even though I do not know any Italian, I knew what was being sung.