'God has a plan for each of us'

The University community filled St. Ignatius Church on April 4 for an evening Mass in memory of the late Pope John Paul II. University President William P. Leahy, SJ, presided over the Mass concelebrated by 17 other priests.

St. Mary's Rector Rev. Paul Harman, SJ, offered the following homily:

(Isaiah 7:10-14; Ps. 40, Heb. 10:4-10; Lk. 1:26-38)

We are accustomed to hearing these readings at the end of Advent - usually with less than a week to go before Christmas. In December, it is as if we fast forward from the amazing announcement to the birth itself, with too little time or space for reflection. Now, at the start of April, we have nine months of anticipation. That gives a different character to these holy texts. So does the fact that, tonight, we are listening to this joyful Gospel in the context of worldwide mourning at the death of Pope John Paul II.

Mary, we know, figured prominently in the imagination and personal piety of John Paul II. This comes as no surprise, not simply because the late Holy Father was a native son of Poland, a strongly Catholic nation, but because Mary has a very special place in the life of any Christian.

How should we look at Mary? We revere her because of her special relationship to Jesus: She is His mother. Centuries of artistic expression can prove helpful but can also be a hindrance to our own "peering into" the scene in Luke's Gospel. See Mary as someone who has attracted God's attention. See Mary as someone free to listen and to respond. And, most importantly, see Mary as someone like yourself, because when we are thinking and speaking about Mary, we are really thinking and saying something about ourselves, ourselves as we are and as we hope to be.

This kind of understanding of Mary makes for authentic devotion. There are people who think that John Paul II and Roman Catholics, in their devotion to Mary, are bent low before some ancient symbol - a symbol that is without meaning as far as contemporary living is concerned. They do not understand that our devotion to our Lady is the fruit of insight. It is the insight of holy men and women starting with the Hebrew Scriptures and coming right down to holy men and women we could name here tonight of our own personal acquaintance. The insight is this: that God has a plan for each of us and what God asks of us is our free consent, our "yes."

The core, the heart of the privilege that we have in common with Mary is that moment in time when she responded in faith: "I am the Lord's servant... Be it done to me according to your word." Mary was a woman who found her life's purpose and meaning in listening and responding - which is why she is always at the center of the Church at Prayer.

The angel greets Mary as "full of grace." She is full of grace, not because of meek obedience, she is full of grace because she is full of courage, she is full of love, she is full of "yes."

Denise Levertov, in her wise poem, Annunciation, asks:

Aren't there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?

Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair,
and with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

The life and death of John Paul II can tell us a thing or two about "annunciations," about listening and responding. Twenty-six years ago, on the night of October 1st, 1979, Pope John Paul II was just a few miles down the road from here, speaking at Boston Common. He addressed his remarks, as he often did, principally to young people. He said:

You are the future of the world and the day of tomorrow belongs to you. . . . . Faced with problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility: escape in selfishness . . . escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. But tonight I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape. . . Whatever you make of your life, let it be something that reflects the love of Christ. . . . remember that Christ is calling you, in one way or another, to the service of love: the love of God and of your neighbor."

The Holy Father was not suggesting that listening to Jesus' call and choosing the option of love is easy. Even as a young university student he knew, firsthand, the experience of suffering and conflict. By the time he walked onto the world's stage in 1978 as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, he had no illusions that the following of Christ was a matter of finding things easy and right; rather, it is about giving ourselves generously to God's gracious activity in making things right.

Dear friends, for the next several days, people around the world will continue to offer tribute for the good that, in their view, Pope John Paul II attempted to do in the course of his long life. In the end, of course, the most that any one of us can do is to take the measure of a human life as seen from the outside. No matter. Long ago this great man had made the decision to take to heart the example of Mary and to put his trust in the God who always understood him from the inside.