Papa’s Message: Remembering Pope John Paul II

By Natacha Sanz-Caballero

“Hoy es Viernes, primero de Abril, del dos mil cinco.”

“Thank you, Rosaria. That was very good. Today is Friday, April first, 2005,” our Spanish teacher, Mrs. Barth, said as I pointed at the calendar. I sat down and the class started. Then I got distracted trying to read the tag on the ceiling: T-E-C-H-O. Techo.

Lots of things in our third-grade classroom were labeled with their Spanish names. I already knew them, because Spanish is the language that I speak with my grandparents.

I like how the same thing is called different names in different languages. I wish I could speak them all. Then I would be able to travel anywhere in the world and speak with everyone I met. When I grow up, I want to be an international reporter.

When Mom picked me up that day after school, the car radio was on. They announced breaking news: the pope was very sick.

“Let’s pray,” Mom said. We prayed the Our Father.

I remembered when we had seen the pope on TV a few days before. It was Easter Sunday and he was on a balcony at his apartment in Vatican City. He tried to speak but no words came out. Then my older sister, Victoria, said something that made no sense to me.

“His actions are speaking louder than words.”

“I thought you could only speak with words,” I said.

“Sometimes you say more by not saying anything at all,” she answered.

I didn’t understand.

“You mean that silence is a language?”

“Sort of,” Victoria said. “But it’s more than that. His actions are speaking. You see, by appearing at the window and showing how he’s suffering, he wants us to see he’s sharing in Jesus’ suffering.”

“Like when he died on the cross?” I said.

“That’s right.”

I remember thinking that I still preferred speaking with words in different languages. Otherwise, how could I be a reporter and travel the world?

When we arrived at home, Mom turned on the TV. It made me sad to hear how sick the pope was, so when I saw the school bus through the window, I ran to wait for Victoria at the door.

“Do you want to play Scrabble?” I asked.

“Maybe later, I need to catch the news. Have you heard about the pope?” she said as she ran to the family room. She sat next to Mom.

I pulled out the Scrabble box and dumped out all the tiles.

POPE, I formed with the letters.

PAPA, I formed next, crossing it with POPE.

PAPA, I formed again. I ran out of P’s. I looked at the words again. This was strange.

“ Victoria, how do you spell dad in Spanish?” I asked

“P-A-P-A. Papa.”

“And what about Pope?”

“P-O-P-E. Pope,” she said.

“That’s in English. How do you spell it in Spanish?”

“P-A-P-A. Papa. Huh?” She stopped watching TV and came to see the scrabble board.

“I’d never noticed,” she said. “Pope and Dad are spelled the same in Spanish.”

“It feels that way too, doesn’t it?” Mom said.

“You mean it feels like the pope is everyone’s dad?” I asked.

The TV was showing St. Peter’s Square in Rome. It was crowded with people standing. They barely had any room to move. It made me think of a huge box of crayons. Most people were praying. Many were crying.

“Yes, it kind of feels that way,” Victoria said. “Like he’s everybody’s dad—our Holy Dad.”

We said special prayers that night, but the pope died the following day. We were all very quiet and sad on Sunday. On TV, we watched the thousands of people who crowded St. Peter’s Square and all the streets in Rome leading to St. Peter’s Basilica. People were coming from all over the world. Many were crying; some were hugging. Some were holding their rosaries; others were holding pictures of John Paul II. Nobody was talking much, except to pray. Even though it was quiet, their actions seemed to say, “We love you, Holy Dad. We’ll miss you. Watch out for us in heaven!”

At our church, Father Juan Carlos talked about what a great communicator John Paul II was. He traveled the world speaking in the native languages of every country he visited, telling of God’s love everywhere. He said that the pope never ceased to speak to us, even when he couldn’t speak at all.

“The language of actions is universal,” Father Juan Carlos said.

Pope John Paul II knew it. And now I know it, too.

Pope John Paul II died two years ago, on April 2, 2005. He was known to be a very holy person. Many people are hoping that he will be declared a saint very quickly. The Church has a special process for studying a person’s life before saying that he or she can be called “Saint.” Usually, the Church waits for five years after a person dies before beginning the process, but an exception was made for John Paul II. The process has begun already.