A Pope's Farewell

Patience is hardly the signal virtue of our age. But somehow the ceremony to mark the passing of Pope John Paul II would not have felt right without the wait; standing still for so long was part of the journey. You could listen closely to the swelling crowd and hear songs and stories and prayers and memories shared in every language--everything, except complaint. Maybe it takes such a death for patience to be born.

Some pilgrims came with little more than the clothes on their backs, because this was not a logical undertaking, it was a leap of faith. The population of Rome doubled in a matter of days, including an estimated 2 million Poles who descended on the Eternal City to honor their native son. There was no room at any inn, so people camped in the streets and squares, while the city tested its gift for hospitality. Romans were urged to open their doors, take people in; the government set up thousands of cots in soccer stadiums, the convention center and makeshift tent cities, handed out bottles of water and blankets and pillows that had been stockpiled in anticipation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

If they brought nothing else, even pilgrims now don't leave home without a phone, which made for a thoroughly modern mourning. The Italian Civil Protection Agency sent out text messages advising people when the line would be closed, though warnings of a 15-hour wait did not seem to discourage people. Some brought a book and read the whole thing. When night fell, the basilica glimmered, and still they came, intent on seeing him one last time. No longer the frail, folded figure in the window, he was a prince in red slippers, tall and straight and strong again. His face showed signs of peace and pain; the peace that has come to him, the pain he leaves behind. As many as 18,000 people passed by every hour, moving almost too fast to pray. The cell phones served as cameras, capturing a relic to carry home.

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Appreciation for his gifts and the suffering of the last years only deepened with the release of John Paul II's will and testament of faith, written in stages over his 26-year papacy. He asked that his personal notes be burned and that he be buried in the bare earth, not a tomb. There was nothing to bequeath, for there was little he owned. But there was much to explain and confess, including his doubts over whether it was God's will that he continue as Pope as his speech slurred and his bones bent; he hoped, in the last hard years, that God would "help me to recognize how long I must continue this service."

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