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Thursday of the Twenty-first week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Testament (trans. DC 2336 © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

"So too, you also must be prepared"

"Watch, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" - these words remind me of the last call that will come at whatever time the Lord desires. I want to follow Him and I want all that is part of my earthly life to prepare me for this moment. I do not know when it will come but I place this moment, like all other things, in the hands of the Mother of my Master: Totus Tuus. In these same motherly hands I leave everything and everyone with whom my life and my vocation have brought me into contact. In these hands I above all leave the Church, and also my nation and all humankind. I thank everyone. I ask forgiveness of everyone. I also ask for prayers, so that God's Mercy may prove greater than my own weakness and unworthiness (06/03/1979)...

Everyone should keep the prospect of death in mind and be ready to go before the Lord and Judge - and at the same time Redeemer and Father. So I keep this continuously in my mind, entrusting that decisive moment to the Mother of Christ and of the Church - to the Mother of my hope…

I would like once again to entrust myself entirely to the Lord's grace. He Himself will decide when and how I am to end my earthly life and my pastoral ministry. In life and in death [I am] Totus Tuus through Mary Immaculate. I hope, in already accepting my death now, that Christ will give me the grace I need for the final passover, that is, [my] Pasch. I also hope that He will make it benefit the important cause I seek to serve: the salvation of men and women, the preservation of the human family and, within in it, all the nations and peoples (among them, I also specifically address my earthly homeland), useful for the people that He has specially entrusted to me, for the matter of the Church and for the glory of God Himself (01/03/1980).