Holy Father's last breath
(Part of a sermon given in the last day or few by the Rev.Tadeusz Styczeń, director of the JPII Institute of the Catholic University of Lublin, in Lublin. His doctoral thesis director and overseer of his habilitation was Karol Wojtyla. Fr Styczen was present at the Holy Father's death bed.)My translation done with a hatchet. In self-defence, the original is not great.
At the moment of the Holy Father’s death I noticed a remarkable change. So recently the great pain on his face. The burden of equipment that was to help prolong his life. He, who sees his faithfulness to the Father in service, but in that service no-one having the right to shorten his road of suffering to the Father. I saw as he raised his exhausted hands. Did he not ask the Father, “If this really suffices, then perhaps let those who care for me know also this, that I may give up my life, and not hold on to it, that You are He Who determines.
And those hands which the sufferring pope looked at and raised, as if he were crying “Do not separate me from God, from my Creator, do not keep me from Him who is the symbol of the good shephed, because I want to be to the end according to the measure measured by my Father.”
The face of the sufferer appeared suddenly as the face of one smiling, leaning towards the pillow, which looked – how can I put it? – like a lamb or sheep, and smiling passed away. No-one dared to intervene, the compulsory procedures could wait. I couldn’t stand it. I had in my pocket two rosaries, I touched the hands, and was gently told, that it wasn’t allowed, that the body must now undergo treatment that was immediately carried out discretely, but in accordance with the regulations. But I still saw – and I think the sisters, the nursing sister, read better than I – that smile, which seemed not to die, but remained alive, more and more eloquent. [unfinished and untranslatable sentence]. [rest of paragraph maybe I’ll do later]
[another paragraph about crowds in the piazza]
His face, the face of some person completely different from that who he was a day earlier, two days earlier. Many days earlier, when in his chapel after many years I sang again the Exultet, that hymn of the happy fault that brought about the coming fo the Redeemer. I was asked to sing it in Latin. The Holy Father could still hear it all and was very visibly pleased.
[some other reflection stuff]
[original in Rzeczpospolita)
At the moment of the Holy Father’s death I noticed a remarkable change. So recently the great pain on his face. The burden of equipment that was to help prolong his life. He, who sees his faithfulness to the Father in service, but in that service no-one having the right to shorten his road of suffering to the Father. I saw as he raised his exhausted hands. Did he not ask the Father, “If this really suffices, then perhaps let those who care for me know also this, that I may give up my life, and not hold on to it, that You are He Who determines.
And those hands which the sufferring pope looked at and raised, as if he were crying “Do not separate me from God, from my Creator, do not keep me from Him who is the symbol of the good shephed, because I want to be to the end according to the measure measured by my Father.”
The face of the sufferer appeared suddenly as the face of one smiling, leaning towards the pillow, which looked – how can I put it? – like a lamb or sheep, and smiling passed away. No-one dared to intervene, the compulsory procedures could wait. I couldn’t stand it. I had in my pocket two rosaries, I touched the hands, and was gently told, that it wasn’t allowed, that the body must now undergo treatment that was immediately carried out discretely, but in accordance with the regulations. But I still saw – and I think the sisters, the nursing sister, read better than I – that smile, which seemed not to die, but remained alive, more and more eloquent. [unfinished and untranslatable sentence]. [rest of paragraph maybe I’ll do later]
[another paragraph about crowds in the piazza]
His face, the face of some person completely different from that who he was a day earlier, two days earlier. Many days earlier, when in his chapel after many years I sang again the Exultet, that hymn of the happy fault that brought about the coming fo the Redeemer. I was asked to sing it in Latin. The Holy Father could still hear it all and was very visibly pleased.
[some other reflection stuff]
[original in Rzeczpospolita)
posted by berenike at 11:24 am
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