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A Personal Reflection on JOHN PAUL II By Charles Whitehead
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Around my study, I have a number of photographs recording our meetings between 1990 and 2000, the years when I was the President of ICCRS. Many of them were taken at private audiences with our Council. Others were taken during more personal meetings for Mass in the small private chapel in his apartments, or at one of the larger audiences he granted us after our international charismatic leaders' conferences. One was taken outside St. Peter's on the eve of Pentecost 1998 in front of almost 400,000 people, as I responded to his teaching to the Charismatic Renewal and all the new Ecclesial Movements and Communities gathered below us in the square. There was never any doubt that Pope John Paul II liked the Charismatic Renewal. At our first meeting his opening sentence was "So you're the most important charismatic in the Church?". When I protested, he smiled at me and said "Perhaps you're right - I suppose I'm the most important charismatic!". When we were invited to his private morning Mass, it was always made clear to us that he expected us to be charismatic. So we felt free to sing in tongues after communion, and on one occasion to bring a message in tongues. At the end of a meeting he would always say "pray for me" as he left us, and when I mentioned this to my wife, Sue, she immediately asked me why we never prayed for him then and there. I told her we just didn't do that sort of thing with the Pope, but her question stayed with me, and the next time he said "pray for me" I asked if he would like us to pray with him before he left. He looked surprised but immediately agreed, so we gathered round him and one or two of us laid hands on him. We sang in tongues, we prayed, there was a prophetic word, and he relaxed beautifully into what was happening. After a few minutes the prayer and singing came to an end, but he remained quietly composed a while longer before turning to each of us to thank us warmly. He made to leave, but turned back to thank us again, clearly very moved by what had happened. I was ticked off afterwards, because it seems that no-one lays hands on the Holy Father, but I was also told that he had really appreciated it! John Paul II had a lively sense of humour. Once we had an audience for the ICCRS Council on St. Patrick's Day, and the first 3 members to be introduced were Sr. Nancy Keller, Dr. Kevin Ranaghan, and Jim Murphy. As I introduced Jim, the Holy Father took a step backwards, grasped my arm and whispered "Keller, Ranaghan and Murphy - on St. Patrick's Day? Are the Irish taking over?" On another occasion I had to introduce a Polish bishop who was an old friend of his, so I simply said "Holy Father, I know I don't need to introduce this eminent bishop to you". "Eminent?" he answered, looking quizzically at me. "Not when I first knew him!" And putting his arm around his old friend, he wagged his finger at him, "now I don't want to hear that you're giving this nice Englishman any trouble!" I have many happy memories. There was the time I asked him to pray for my parish priest who had hurt his ankle and was unable to walk freely. His instant response was "then he'll have more time to pray!" and delving into his robes he took out his rosary and gave it to me with the instruction "give him this and ask him to use the time for prayer". In September 1993, ICCRS held a retreat in Assisi with Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa for more than 1,500 leaders from all over the world, and we wanted to finish with an audience. Our requests were declined by the person responsible for audiences as the Pope was officially on holiday, but when John Paul heard about our retreat we had a phone call saying we were very welcome. When we arrived in the courtyard at Castelgandolfo, I was informed that it would be a very short audience, but it seemed the Pope had other ideas. His first words to me as I went forward to greet him were "Ah, you charismatics! Full of joy and bringing me Jesus!" I was invited to make a speech telling him where we all came from and about our retreat, and in his reply he complimented us on choosing his own retreat master, joined in our singing of praise songs, and then asked me to introduce him to everyone in the front rows. After 45 minutes he left us for talks with ex President Gorbachov from Russia, who was waiting for him. I could write much more. A wonderful man, a great leader, a tower
of strength with a formidable intellect - but also kind, considerate,
humorous, understanding, and above all else, in love with Jesus. We
will not see his like again. He was very encouraging to me personally
- I shall miss him greatly.
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I'm
writing this on Friday, April 8th. The experience of the last two
days is hard to put into words - people from all over the world, gathering
to say goodbye to a man they felt they knew, even though hardly any
of them had ever met him. The world's media has spoken and written
of little else for days, and there can be few who are not aware of
the achievements of John Paul the Great. If there is anything missing
from the pages of information we have been offered, it is the more
personal reflections of those who met him, and so after a little gentle
persuasion by my editor, here is my own short tribute to this amazing
man.