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HELP!l
The refreshments at our meetings are being provided by the same members
every month. If you’ve been providing refreshments, please take a break for
a little while. If you have not, consider it your turn. Snacks and drinks
which we can store in our cabinet in unopened or resealable food containers
would be great. Fresh baked goods are really appreciated too but, of course,
that or with any food requiring refrigeration, we just have to make certain
that there are no leftovers Perhaps we can discuss this at our Sept.
meeting: a refreshment committee?; a “petty cash” allowance for refreshments
and paper goods? Other suggestions?
Let’s
face it: The Pope really is great
By MARCUS GEE,
The Globe and Mail. Saturday, July 27, 2002
What makes hundreds of thousands of young people scream and weep over a sick
old man? To some, the fuss over the Pope in Toronto this week is just a cult
of personality, no more profound than the mass adoration of totalitarian
dictators or overpaid rock stars. But that’s obviously nonsense. No coercive
state is forcing young people to worship the Pope. Nor are they drawn by
simple stage presence. Whatever skill the Pope had as a performer has been
sadly eroded by his ailments.
No, the outpouring of affection is spontaneous, and wholly remarkable. No
political leader, no musician or sports hero, can command such attention. Just
look at the faces of those kids who flocked to see him. As the Pope spoke to
them for the first time this week, struggling through his illness to get the
words out, they were absolutely rapt, straining to absorb every word. Some
faces were wet with tears, others split by broad smiles. Only the sourest
cynic would dismiss their feelings as childish celebrity worship.
Everyone is drawn to true greatness. and John Paul II is quite simply the
greatest man alive. Even if you don’t share their religious conviction, it’s
not hard to understand what they see in him. Long before he came to Canada, he
had established himself as a figure of surpassing courage, vision and
humanity. His critics see him as a reactionary who opposes abortion,
artificial conception and the ordination of women as priests. But those views
are scarcely surprising in a leader of the Roman Catholic Church. and they are
only part of his world-view.
John Paul is also the Repenting Pope. He has apologized on behalf of Catholics
for taking part in the slave trade, killing Czech Protestants in the 15th
century, persecuting Galileo in the 17th century and persecuting Jews through
the ages.
He is the Healing Pope. He has made it a mission to mend fences with other
Christian denominations and other faiths. He is the first pope to enter a
synagogue and the first to visit an Islamic country. He is the Pacifist Pope.
He opposed the Persian Gulf war, condemns the death penalty and deplores the
arms trade.
He is the Human Rights Pope. He helped bring down the Communist dictatorship
in his Polish homeland and undermine right-wing dictators in Chile. Haiti and
the Philippines.
He is the Social Democratic Pope. who has criticized the harshness of global
capitalism and the “idolatry of the market.”
And, of course, he is the Travelling Pope, visiting scores of countries in a
tireless effort to reach out to people around the world.
All of this would have been enough to secure John Paul’s special place in
history. But, in the final act of his life, he has given us an even more
remarkable incarnation: the Suffering Pope. Arthritis, various operations and
Parkinson’s disease have transformed the vigorous man who visited Canada last
in 1985 into a shuffling, quivering wreck. Parkinson’s freezes the muscles,
bends the back, stifles the voice and makes ordinary movements an exhausting
battle. The strength of will it must take to travel all this way and then
deliver an address to a throng in the summer heat is unimaginable. Yet he does
it, and with joy. His disease has made his face, once so expressive. into an
impassive mask, but when he faced a roaring crowd of 300,000 on the Toronto
waterfront this week, he smiled several times. Those smiles brought tears to
many who saw them he so plainly wanted to be there, spending the last measures
of his failing strength to inspire others.
Instead of surrendering to his illness, he has turned it to his advantage,
becoming a living example of every thing he preaches. “Be not afraid!” he
exhorted the faithful at the start of his papacy 24 years ago. When he made
his own courageous appearance this week, John Paul was not just stroking his
adoring flock, he was throwing down a challenge. “Don’t be afraid.” Don’t be
afraid to speak out for what you believe. Don’t be afraid of poverty. Don’t be
afraid of physical infirmity (it’s only a body. after all). Have the courage
to do something with your life, to resist the lure of consumerism and fashion
and money and see what is really important. “You are the salt of the earth,”
he told them. “You are the light of the world.”
His spokesman, Joaquim Navarro-Valls, describes John Paul as “a body pulled by
a soul.” and what a soul! If those young people responded to him, it was not
because they were succumbing to adolescent hero worship: it was because they
sensed the presence of the great soul that still moves within that ruined
body. They cried, they laughed, they whooped, they cheered. Many of us cheered
along with them.
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