Goodbye To Pope John Paul II

The passing of John Paul II has made me reflect upon the life and teachings of this great man. I was raised as a Catholic but am a Protestant. However, even as a Protestant I have been blessed and inspired by John Paul II. Surly, John Paul was not just any ordinary man in any sense of the word. He was an extraordinary human being who accomplished great things in his life. He was a holy person and was separated unto God. He desired to be here for God and he suffered much for Him. John Paul suffered physically in his final years but more importantly he suffered spiritually.

It has been said by many people that John Paul could often be heard in deep groans, as if in pain, while he prayed. When Christ saw Mary, and those with her weeping, because of Lazarus' death - He groaned in the spirit(John 11:33). In Romans 8 we are told that the creation groans and we likewise groan within ourselves awaiting the redemption of our bodies to be conformed to His glorious body. Romans 8 also tells us that the Spirit makes intercession "within" us with groanings. The thought of groaning brings up an image of one who is in pain or deep suffering. Christ groaned in the spirit because death had brought sorrow to those He loved. He identified with suffering mankind and truly felt deeply and inwardly the pain of death.

The apostle Paul also suffered much in many ways and in II Corinthians chapter 11 he lists some of the many things he suffered. Near the end of the list he mentions the suffering that was probably his greatest weight. He says:

“besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.”

Daily the Apostle had great concern for the churches. The state of the churches weighed heavily upon him. John Paul also must have felt the weight of responsibility God had placed upon his shoulders in caring for the Catholic Church. I'm sure at times it may have felt like it was almost more than he could bear. John Paul was a man marked by prayer and was deeply committed to seeing that God's will would be done in God's Church on Earth.

How it must have pained John Paul to see the flock God committed to him so divided. The Western church especially! He watched as the Western church declined and set a course down the slippery slope of modernism, secularism and outright rebellion against God! How John Paul must have "groaned" in his spirit and he must have thought many times of the passage in Proverbs 14:12 that says:

"There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death."

The Catholic Church in America is following and succumbing to the current "culture of death", which the world is characterized by today. The belief that the church should conform and allow women priests, gay priests, same sex unions, birth control, abortion, divorce etc. etc. only betrays how blind the American branch of the Catholic Church has become. If these are issues important to American Catholics, and are practices they want, then why don't they just join some "liberal" church that supports and allows these things? Instead they want to try and conform the Catholic Church to their wayward and lost ideas.

The Church does not need to conform to her people and their "worldly" and carnal thoughts! It is the people who should conform to God's "heavenly" thoughts and the teachings of the Church; because the church is "heavenly" in origin and nature! It's NOT of this world! (Philippians 4:20)

Christ, in Matthew 13: 24-31, gave us the parable about the "wheat" and the "tares". In the parable an enemy has come into the church, which is represented in the parable as the "kingdom", and the enemy has sown tares among the wheat. Wheat and tares look somewhat alike and sometimes behave alike but in reality they are not alike. The parable goes on to talk about allowing the wheat and tares to grow up together until the harvest and then the reapers will separate them out. It seems that we are getting to where we can clearly see who the tares are in the church! The harvest must be getting very close indeed!

John Paul II was a man who stood for truth. He would not be swayed by the world or by public opinion. He believed that what Christ entrusted to the church must be maintained and even fought for. If the Catholic Church loses most of the West, due to it's apostasy to the faith, then the universal Church can, and will, become more pure in the process.

I appreciate the stand that John Paul II has taken against the tide of modernism and secular humanism in the world. I have heard John Paul referred to as a "humanist" and he was a humanist but not in the way that many people think of it. Secular humanism and the humanist beliefs of John Paul are not even remotely on the same page. John Paul's humanism was based on the example of the only truly "real" human...the Lord Jesus Christ. He was true man and true God at the same time. He was the God-man! Christ showed us what it really means to be human according to God's mind and what God intended for humanity to be like in the divine intention. Christ's life and existence centered in the Father and we, taking Christ as our example, should have our life and existence centered in the Son. The Holy Spirit ignites and is the source of the humanism that John Paul II preached, and the Spirit elevates us to live here as heavenly men as Christ lived. Yes the world will hate us. Yes it will persecute us! Yes it will call us "intolerant", "Victorian", "out of step with the times", "bigots" and any other thing it can think of to demean and demoralize us and break us to their will.

The world wants us to believe that resistance to their cause is futile and everyday they are gaining more and more ground within the church. Protestants are just as guilty of this worldly thinking and behavior and perhaps more so than Catholics. All of us could learn something from John Paul's example of holiness and godliness.

I will miss John Paul. Whoever the next pope is he will have big shoes to fill. I pray that whoever God raises up that he will have the spiritual fortitude and resolve to stay the course.

If you are a Catholic, and have found this article today, and have found yourself buying into the lies of the world and our post-modern culture, I have a word for you.....REPENT!

Repent before it is too late.

It is not your Church that needs to change it is YOU my friend! I hope and pray that you will find the grace to do so.

If you are Protestant and have found this article today, and you too find that you have let yourself slip from the truth once delivered to the saints, I have one word for you....REPENT!

The church in general is characterized by apostasy. Apostasy simply means: "to fall away". Surly, the Western church is marked by apostasy today. The book of Jude's main teaching is about apostasy and in the book of Jude we are instructed to:

"contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."

There is no other faith than the one that Christ gave to us through His holy apostles. It is called "the" faith. The one and only faith and we are charged to contend for it! That means there will be a battle. There will be conflict and pain and suffering. The world will not love us but we must stand for what is right and what honors the Lord's name. Not allowing human thinking and sentimentality to rule us! We must act in love being motivated by the love of God for us and all humanity. That means we must stand for righteousness and truth with steadfastness against sin. It is a "false love", a wordly, cowardly love that will not confront sin!

Again I say to all, including myself...REPENT!

With John Paul's funeral today it brings to close the end of an era. I hope and pray that the church, Catholic and Protestant, can learn from this great man and the understanding and conviction of truth he has left us. He left a great legacy because he was a man who was fashioned after Christ. May he rest in peace until the resurrection of all those who are the dead in Christ!

John Paul II, I love you!

Much love to all,

Philologus