"Totus Tuus, Maria"
April 8, 2005

Our beloved Pope John Paul II will be buried below St. Peter's Basilica following his funeral today.  But he will never be buried in the hearts and minds of his Church, Christ's Church.  One of the greatest popes of all time!   (The greatest pope of our time.)  We all love him!  Following our first pope, St. Peter, and later Pope Leo IX – Pope John Paul II was our 264^th pope and had the 3^rd longest pontificate (26 years).   People all over the world remember many things about him.  We want to take a moment to highlight his love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  His entire life had a Marian thread.

His own mother died when he was a young boy while living in Poland.  As a young man, Karol Josef Wojtyla, joined a group known as the Living Rosary.  When he wanted to become a theater artist, young Karol, made the Consecration to Mary.  But, just after making it, a thought came to his mind, "I want to be a priest."  It wasn't long after that, that he did become a priest, and then a bishop.  As a bishop, and then a pope, he took the same Motto of Consecration:  "Totus Tuus" ("I am all yours, Mary.")

He told us the "Rosary" was his favorite prayer (after the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours) and he lived it.  He prayed the rosary several times a day throughout his life.  How many times do we see pictures of him praying so intently!  He is a model of prayer. 

Sometime early in his pontificate, his motto "Totus Tuus"; was coined.  The world associates it with Pope John Paul II.  As early as 1979 we see it in papal writings.  In 1981, an assassin tried to murder him in St. Peter's Square.  Miraculously, the bullet entered and left the center of his body, narrowly missing all his vital organs.  He believed the Blessed Mother guided the bullet so it would not kill him. The next year, on May 13, 1982 he visited the Marian shrine in Fatima, Portugal, to publicly express his appreciation to Mary, Queen of Peace.  It wasn't long, before he claimed he to be the pope of the Fatima children's third secret.  This statement officially confirmed Sister Lucia's message from Mary. 

When he was older, he wrote the Luminous Mysteries, The Mysteries of Light.  What a gift to the Church!  He is the one God and Mary used to complete those Mysteries of Christ's life that were missing in our rosary meditations:  The Baptism of Jesus, the Miracle at the Wedding of Cana, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the Transfiguration, and the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. 

In the year 2000, during the Jubilee of the Bishops, the pope solemnly entrusted the Church and the third millennium to the Virgin Mary.  The Pope declared October 2002 to October 2003 inclusively the "Year of the Rosary".  The call was not for just a year, but to use the year to promote the Rosary, rediscover the Rosary, learn to pray it better thereafter.

Although Pope John Paul II never visited Medjugorje, he confided on different occasions that he desired to be there.  Once he even remarked that if he wasn't supposed to be where he was, he'd "be saying his confession in Medjugorje."  He blessed many pilgrims on their way to and from Medjugorje.  And now, immediately after his death - the visionary, Ivan, is reported to have seen our Holy Father in an apparition:

"Totus Tuus, Maria"