This is the day after Pope John Paul II died.

The news papers, TV, radio and other publications will be busy assessing the impact of the ministry that Pope John Paul has given to our church and to the human family for the last 26 years. There is room for that.

Considering the place we are in and the Sunday Eucharist we are celebrating I prefer not to go in that direction. I’d rather draw our attention to the second reading of this Sunday’s Eucharist. It is so very appropriate now that Pope John Paul has died. This is the message of hope that he himself has lived from, that he has borne witness to in so many different ways, and that in turn we are privileged to live from as well and share with him.

In the final analysis, it is not our accomplishments that will make our future secure, but as the Apostle Peter, whose successor Pope John Paul was, says in today’s second reading it is “God’s mercy that has given” Pope John Paul and us “a new birth into a living hope…. a birth into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” That is the faith that Pope John Paul has lived from, a faith that has also been tested for its genuineness, a faith that as successor of Peter he has supported us and so many others in.

What more would we wish for him than that he may now enjoy that great inheritance that Jesus in his resurrection gained for us all. Indeed, we pray that he “may receive the outcome of his faith, the salvation of his soul.”.