"Let Me Go to the Father's House"

By Mitchell

Catching up from last week, Domenico Bettinelli links to the story on the Vatican's official chronology of the last days of Pope John Paul II. I find this kind of thing intensely interesting (why else would I have read The Making of the Popes 1978 by Fr. Greeley, other than the fact that I didn't know any better at the time?) and, in the case of JPII, extremely moving. All it took was a cursory reading and all of a sudden I was transplanted back to those dramatic days in March and April.

It is reported with some authority that the Pope's last words were, "Let me go to the Father's house." (Which, as another commentator remarked - forgive me, I forget who - adds extra meaning to Cardinal Ratzinger's words during the funeral homily.) Would that we could all say that, with our dying breath.