On May 13, 2021, at 7.00 a.m. on the 40th anniversary of the assassination attempt, a Holy Mass was celebrated by Stanislaus card. Dziwisz at the tomb of St. John Paul II in the Basilica of St. Peter. Also, the Mass was concelebrated by Konrad card. Krajewski and forty priests. In the Holy Mass nuns and many faithful participated.
At 11.00 am, card. Stanisław Dziwisz, together with priests, nuns, and the Polish community organization ‘Polska w Sercu’, laid flowers on the St. Peter Square at the assassination place.
Homily by Fr. Stanislaus card. Dziwisz delivered during the Holy Mass
Brothers and sisters,
From the Vatican hill, from the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle and St. John Paul II, we look today towards the Mount of the Lord’s Ascension. The two hills were united by the missionary command of the risen Christ, which we just heard from St. Mark: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16:15). It was the Lord’s call that through St. Peter made it possible for the Good News about the resurrection to reach Rome from far away Palestine. – then the capital of the vast empire, and the other Apostles and their disciples took it to the ends of the world. In this way the words of Jesus were fulfilled. Today, St. Lukes evokes them in the Acts of the Apostles: ” You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (cf. Acts 1:8). All this was done “by the power of the Holy Spirit”, which the disciples received on the day of Pentecost.
But, the Risen Lord did not stop here and as we can hear in today’s Psalm 47: He “reigns over nations” and “sits on His holy throne.” The truthfulness of the Gospel proclaimed over the course of two millennia has been confirmed by extraordinary signs – freedom from evil spirits cast out in His name, the speaking of new languages, the healing of the sick, or protection from the evil symbolized by the snakes’ venom and poison. How many of these signs accompanied the successors of St. Peter, who from his tomb, from this hill came to bless the city and the world.
At the same time, Jesus’ mission has been marked by incomprehensible rejection over the course of history. How many times have the walls of Rome and the Vatican become silent witnesses of incomprehensible aggression and the attack of evil on the Church and subsequent successors of St. Peter. How many of them, confirmed the truthfulness and authenticity of the Good News by the martyrdom or rejection of their contemporaries.
In saying these words, I go back in my memory 40 years ago, when on May 13th, the horrific bullets of an assassinator, here on the St. Peter’s Square, almost fatally wounded the Holy Father, St. John Paul II. To this day, I feel his inert body falling on my shoulders. I see his blood coming on his white Papal cassock, going over my hands and clothes. I also hear his constantly repeated, weak prayer: “Mary, my Mother”. From that day on, I know how St. John the Apostle felt holding the body of Christ removed from the cross.
How hard it is to forget the bang of the assassin’s gun shots, which in an instant could have ended this extraordinary pontificate, which had just blossomed in the power of the Holy Spirit. I think about this terrible race against time, not to lose his life. I remember the doctors, the medical staff and all the services and people whose cooperation contributed to the rescue of St. John Paul II. I also recall this praying world and our homeland, the Krakow’s Biały Marsz (White March), and so many other initiatives taken all the way to the ends of the earth for the intention of saving the Holy Father.
Today, forty years after that event and sixteen years after the St. John Paul II departure to the Father’s House, I think with horror what would have happened if we had lost him on the St. Peter’s Square at that time. How poor and different would be the world and our homeland – Poland without his witness of faith, teaching, pointing and warning of the dangers and turbulence that can be present in the modern world. The question persistently comes back to me as to whether we would be able to understand ourselves; the Church which he reformed and led with such commitment in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council; a family for which he fought in every corner of the globe; youth which he brought to Christ – the source of true love, beauty and purity; finally, a life for which he demanded respect from the beginning to the natural death. How difficult it would be for us to live without his lessons how to pray and his total entrustment to the Triune God through Mary. Yes, on May 13, 1981, the Lord’s words became true: ” They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.” As St. John Paul II himself said: “That afternoon someone’s hand was firing, but the Other Hand was leading bullets.”
Today, irradiated by the mystery of Mount of Lord’s Ascension, from the Vatican hill, we look further, behind the Alps and the Pyrenees, to see Fatima, its message, sanctuary and graces, the famous figure of the Madonna, whose crown is decorated with the scale of the bullet from the assassination – the extraordinary votive of St. John Paul II offered to the One, whom God gave us and the Church for help and defense. Through Her maternal and immaculate Heart we give thanks for that miracle of salvation on May 13, 1981. At the same time, we would like to offer to God our votive vote. Let it be a trusting prayer for the world fighting the coronavirus pandemic, carried out in our lives of the Decalogue and the Eight Blessings of Christ, and finally fidelity to the teaching and mission that St. John Paul the Great left us. Amen.
