POLES REMEMBER POPE – Girls dressed in traditional Polish outfits place flowers in front of a portrait of Pope John Paul II at the beginning of an April 6 memorial Mass for the Polish pope. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee celebrated Mass for the Polish community at St. Maximillian Kolbe Parish in Milwaukee. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)

Today I realize how dad felt: the world, the Church, I have lost a Holy Father, a friend, a good shepherd.

I just fulfilled a solemn duty as your archbishop as I knelt before the Eucharist in our Cathedral and thanked God for the life, the gift of Pope John Paul the Great, and prayed Psalm 130.

“Praise be Jesus Christ” were the first words he uttered twenty-six-and-a-half years ago when he was elected successor of St. Peter.

And those are my words now - - “Praise be Jesus Christ” as I thank God for a pastor who taught us how to live and how to die.

Three special words come to mind at this somber moment: the first is serenity. They tell us he was serene till the very end. Sure he was: he was a man of unshakeable faith and hope, who had as his motto, totus tuus, “all yours,” as he surrendered his whole life to the Lord.

Two, solidarity, which he made a household word. It seems as if the whole world, certainly the entire Church, has been in solidarity these last days around the deathbed of our father. We Catholics have been deeply touched by the solidarity we have experienced from all our friends and neighbors, and we now feel an intense solidarity in our loss and in our faith in life eternal.

The third word is Savior: Yes, Karol Wojtyla was a poet, a Polish patriot, a philosopher, a diplomat, linguist, priest, statesman, pontiff, but first and foremost he was a believer, a disciple of Jesus Christ our Savior. And now we pray that he has met His Savior face-to-face and heard those words we all long to hear from Jesus! “Well done, good and faithful servant! Now enter into the kingdom I have prepared for you!”

Viva il Papa!