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April 3, 2005
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| The altar of the St. Paul Cathedral is adorned with an image of the pope. (MPR Photo/Melanie Sommer) |
Minneapolis, Minn. — By late afternoon people were gathering at the cathedral, taking seats in the dark brown pews and kneeling in prayer.
Later, Archbishop Harry Flynn led an evening mass in a sanctuary filled with flowers from the Easter season. Some 2,000 people followed the clergy and the cantor through the liturgy. Then Flynn, resplendent in his church vestments, stood in the cathedral's white marble pulpit and offered his view of John Paul's legacy.
Flynn remembered the tumult of the Catholic Youth Congresses where the pope was a favorite. The sight of John Paul thrilled the young people, and often they'd begin to chant, Flynn remembers, "JP II we love you."
"And he would always put his finger up and correct them -- 'Not everyone loves me,'" Flynn recalled.
Flynn said Pope John Paul II preached a Gospel message that was not always popular with governments as he argued against war and unbridled materialism, and often not popular with individuals who considered him too conservative.
"He'd speak about human sexuality, and the duty that it is and that it belongs in marriage. He'd speak about the reverence for every human being, and especially the child in the womb," he said.
After the service Flynn greeted people. The worshippers included people who don't always agree with church doctrine.
Sharon Morris describes herself as "a lapsed Catholic." Even so, she attended the Saturday evening mass to honor the pope's memory.
"I never really agreed with all of what the Holy Father said, but you've got to respect a man who stuck by his beliefs. He had faith, he had as much faith as any other person on this earth. And I can only be thankful now that he's with God," Morris said.
Michael, a worshipper who preferred his last name not be used, had been watching media coverage of the pope's death, and hearing the analysis that John Paul II will eventually be called great because of his travels and his writings.
"Judging from his humble character, I don't know if he'd be comfortable with that, really. And that's one of the beautiful things I noticed about him. He was a very humble man and he came from humble beginnings, and that's what made him so human. He'd experienced so much loss in life," Michael said.
Others talked about John Paul II's formative years as Karol Wojtyla, a member of the resistance in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, his service as a young priest under the oppressive rule of the Communists.
Worshipper Tom McGwuigan says those experiences are at odds with the stereotypes some hold about John Paul.
"They probably figure he spent his life sequestered as a holy person, which he was. But he was also a human being, and it was that humanity that came from living and being just a normal human being that set him apart from other people," McGwuigan said.
People kept coming to the cathedral even as the doors were being closed at 10 p.m. They found a candlelight vigil underway on the cathedral steps.
The small flames formed a twinkling constellation of light in the darkness, as people repeated words that have offered comfort and hope for centuries in the face of great loss.
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