Our German Shepherd

I think I would have been doing a disservice if I would have spent my time writing this week about anything other than the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI.  When the announcement came out on Monday, I, like most of the Catholic Community was absolutely shocked.  I instantly knew that this was my material for the week and I felt like I needed to write about it immediately.  So I started thinking about what I would write about Papa Bene and his life and then I came to the realization that I really didn't have anything...

April 2, 2005.  The day that Pope John Paul II passed on from this world.  At the time I was a 15 year old kid who was starting to form his own identity, one certainly not centered in the church.  However, I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing on that historic day, much like I can tell you where I was when the twin towers were struck or when the president was elected.  That's the kind of impact that man had.  His death made me take my mind off of a silly freshman baseball game in Bellevue, Nebraska and focus the rest of the day to man I had never met, or never even really knew.

One thing that I can't tell you is where I was when Pope Benedict was elected to the papacy.  In fact, without looking it up, I can't even tell you the day.  And I think about that, and I feel horrible.  This is the pope we are talking about!  The leader of our church, our Holy Father, and I can't remember a single thing about the day he was elected?! But wait a minute...don't you think that's the way he would have wanted it? A quiet man, he lived his life with his books, his window, and the birds that flew by it. That's how he liked it.  But he was also a man that was incredibly obedient to God and the higher places within the church in which he was called.

Pope Benedict leaves his post on February 28 the same way he came into it, with an incredible sense of humility.  When he took the job, many people questioned if he could fill the shoes that JPII left, but he didn't have to.  They were two different people.  John Paul II stuck out the papacy through failing health to show people how to suffer, to show people how to use that suffering for the greater good of the Kingdom.  Pope Benedict leaves the seat of Peter with the humility of knowing that his health is in a place where he cannot handle the rigors of the job anymore.  And don't fool yourself, he isn't retiring to some golf course to spend his days.  Pope Benedict knows exactly what the church needs and that's why will be spending the rest of his days in a monastery in prayer, fasting, and penance.

So, I may not ever know when he was elected or I may forget that I was in my bed checking twitter that morning of February 11th when I read the news.  But I will remember a man that gave everything he had to the church, and a man that had the humility to know that it was time to step down. His job is done and now the church looks to pass the torch to the next leader.  Well done good and faithful servant.