Of life and morality, in the shadow of a saint
The other day, my nephew lost a milk tooth. The happiness in his little face as he anticipated a financial windfall from the Tooth Fairy led me to think about how, even at the beginning of life, we start losing bits and pieces of ourselves.
It’s a subtle diminishment but, as they say, we start dying with our first breath.
Wordsworth talked about children trailing clouds of glory as they are pushed into the world by angels, and that always reminded me that even at the moment of birth, we have lost some of the Creator’s magic.
To those who don’t believe in the divine, that might not make any sense at all. I’ll leave them to their scientific journals.
So, as I was saying. Gazing into a little boy’s eyes as he contemplates and calculates the significance of that gap in his gums brought home to me the fragility of life and the fact that we are all on a time clock.
That’s when the news that John Paul II had been cleared for sainthood was made public.
My first thought was, “Wow, I was there when he celebrated Mass on Logan Circle in 1979.” It’s not often that you get to say you prayed with an honest-to-goodness saint, even though you shared that privilege with hundreds of thousands of other Philadelphians.
And then I started thinking about what this most exceptional of men meant to me.
He was the Pope of my teenage years and youth, a man for whom I felt great personal affection from the time I lived in Rome and visited the Vatican every Wednesday for his public audiences (most of which I didn’t get into.)
Most of the important things that happened to me happened on his watch, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a particular kinship with someone who was both an ecclesiastical giant and the warm pilgrim with the sweet, Slavic countenance of a simple man.
Beyond this, the reason that I most remember John Paul II is what he taught me about the dignity of life, every moment of it from the first breaths (and gap-toothed smiles) to the last gasps before we reach toward eternity.
Papa Wotyla, as the Italians fondly called him, was a very sick man at the end, a sickness that lasted throughout his final decade. We watched as the hale and healthy skier with the ruddy complexion and twinkling eyes morphed into a hunched and weary figure, someone whose voice was as weak as his spirit was strong.
At first, I wondered why his handlers allowed him to appear in public that way. But then it occurred to me that there was a method to this papal madness, if you will, a meaning to what others considered a cruel sideshow of illness and deterioration.
John Paul II was teaching us by his own, moving example that even those who are approaching death have great value and that they are owed both respect and compassion. He showed us that the body is simply the receptacle of the soul, and that the soul is not only eternal. It is a beautiful thing to behold when manifested in the feeble voice of a living saint.
A friend of mine told me a story about what is happening in Italy just now.
Much like the United States, immigrants are flooding their shores, crossing the waters between North Africa and the Sicilian island of Lampedusa in search of shelter and a better life. Some of them travel on paper-thin watercraft that capsize mid-voyage, and are forced to cling to fishing nets and other pieces of refuse in the sea.
One such group of people were forced to spend days floating in the waters, and when a fishing boat came upon them its owner did not pick them up. When asked why, he said that he had precious cargo in that boat which he didn’t want to jeopardize. His vessel was filled with tuna.
For these reasons the newest pope, Papa Francesco, visited Lampedusa and railed against what a wise person called “the epidemic of immunity to global suffering.”
In a way, that is exactly what John Paul was alerting us to, this sense that acquisition is important and that only shiny, fresh things are worth having.
This is the same sentiment that caused USA Today in an editorial to imply that late-term abortion is necessary to allow women to abort babies diagnosed with Downs Syndrome because, after all, they are imperfect creatures.
Our society has been infected with this desire to look at ourselves first, and others second. We have lost sight of the importance of life at every stage, from the first moments when it is cradled in the womb, to the last when it is curled into itself in final farewell.
Fortunately for us, there are still gap-toothed smiles. And saints.
Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Readers may send her email at cflowers1961@gmail.com.