When Jesus promised the young man, “You will have treasure in heaven, give it all away and follow me!” The young man was shocked.  Shocked!  What a thing to ask – and he went away grieving!  Jesus says in another place in the gospel that where your treasure is, there will be your heart also and the young man proved that.

The gospel says the young man had many possessions but it sounds like the possessions owned him instead!  He couldn’t live without them, even with the promise directly from Jesus that he would have his treasure!

Most of us have never been put to such a test directly, to give it all away.  And it’s probably just as well because most of us have a lot of difficulty even giving a little of it away.  As the priest said one day to his congregation, “I have some good news and some bad news!  The good news is that we now have enough money to pay off the entire debt for the church renovation!”  At that, the entire congregation burst into applause.  The he lowered his voice and said, “The bad news is that the money is still in your pockets!”

And yet, I think that most of us would show what is really important to us perhaps I other circumstances.  Imagine that someone very close to you, perhaps a spouse or child, was ill, even dying from a rare disease and the only hope for recovery was to see a specialist in another country and undergo a treatment that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Perhaps it would mean selling your house and using all your savings and not thinking about what would happen tomorrow, but to do what you can today to help and trust the Lord for the future.  I think most of us would do just that, give it all away to save the one we love.  So how do we make the connection between what God may ask to cause us to turn away when we should trust.

Let me tell you a story about a young man who was born in a small city in a poor country many years ago.  He didn’t have a lot but after high school he managed to get a place in University and enrol in a drama school for he loved the theatre.  Then the second world war came and when the Nazi’s invaded, they closed the university and the young man was fortunate to find a job in a quarry so that he could afford to support his family and avoid being shipped off to Germany like many of his young friends.  It wasn’t a great life but it was safe as long as he didn’t take too many risks.

But a small voice was speaking inside this man, and as he prayed he heard the Lord calling his name, telling him that his call was to follow the Lord and become a priest.  But that meant attending the underground seminary which, had been banned by the conquerors, risking his life and possibly that of his family and friends too in retribution if he was caught!  How easy it would have been for him to say, “You ask too much Lord, it is just too big a chance to take!”  And then, like the young man in the gospel, he would have turned away from Jesus.  Would we have understood and sympathized with him if he just couldn’t find the courage to risk it all?  I think many of us would have agreed.

Yet this young man, Karol Wojtyla, did not turn away and he became a priest, and today we know him as Pope John Paul II.  The Lord promised the young man treasure in heaven and salvation in eternity and he understood that this was worth all the risks in the world because with the Lord supporting him, there was really no risk at all.

Imagine what the world would have been like for the last 25 years without him, if young Karol had said, “No Lord, you ask too much!”

As it is, he didn’t and this week, Catholics and Christians the world over will celebrate his 25 years as our Holy Father.  Cardinal Ambrosic has asked all Catholics in the archdiocese to make a special effort to remember “Il Papa” as he is called in Italian, in our prayers this week.  “Papa”, you know that somehow I like that better than “the Pope” for this man, who has always been so personal and never been just a faraway authority figure.  When we reflect on everything he has done for us and realize that he has served us for more than three times the average reign of eight years for Popes throughout the ages we know we have been truly blessed that he had the courage to do what Jesus asked of him.

Our holy Father is eighty-three years old and many have commented on his frail health in recent times and yet things are relative.  We look at the man who in his sixties and seventies would rise at 5:00 am every day, say his first mass at 7:00 am, have company for all three meals and often work late into the night reading and writing, years after most of us would have retired, and then we say he is getting frail because he finally submitted to putting an afternoon nap in his schedule!

I would invite you to come to visit with me at Sheridan Villa where you would meet many men and women who were 83 and you’d see that the Holy Father is doing quite well for his age!

There are so many stories to tell about John Paul that show he truly is a man of the people and his own motto that we have heard so often is “Be not afraid!  Put out into the deep!”

He took risks for us – 22 years ago he was shot in St. Peter’s square while he was down among the crowd instead of riding in a sedan chair.  He has carried on despite many illnesses, many surgeries and the onset of Parkinson’s disease and he has carried on always in good spirit.  In 1992 and 1993 he was treated for a pre-cancerous colon, a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder and recently for a broken leg and hip surgery and when he showed up again at Rome’s Gemelli hospital after hurting himself in a fall in the bathroom, he said to the admitting nurse, “Well, you have to admire my loyalty!”

Despite all this he has travelled outside of Italy 95 times to 129 countries, made over 140 visits inside of Italy and as the Bishop of Rome, he has personally visited over 330 parishes in that city.  It is estimated that over 16 million people have seen him in person in his weekly audiences alone in Rome and uncounted millions more in all the outdoor masses and special events he has travelled around the world.  Very soon after he was elected Pontiff, he said, “I must visit my people!” and he has lived up to that promise.  There is probably not another human being in history who has been seen in person, in the flesh, by so many people.

There are many stories about what a down-to-earth person John Paul is and one of favourites was told by the Archbishop of Liverpool who was part of a series of meetings in Rome that the Pope was attending while he was still just a bishop, bishop Wojtyla from Cracow.  It had been raining hard in Rome and all the taxis were booked and so the Pope had walked to the meeting in the pouring rain.  When he came in, just before the meeting started, he took off his wet shoes and socks, wrung the water out of his socks and laid them on the radiator to dry and then sat down at the table in his bare feet and said, “Gentlemen, shall we get to work?”  When the Archbishop heard that this man had been elected Pope, he felt that here at last was a leader that had the vigor to walk to a meeting and the humility to take his socks off in public!

Our Holy Father once shared a stage with Bob Dylan the folksinger and heard him sing “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man” and the John Paul said, “There is only one road needed, it is the road of Jesus Christ!”

A holy and simple man, and yet a very powerful spiritual leader.  On his second trip to Poland, the Communists had declared Marshall Law and everyone was wondering what the Pope would say when he met Jarulzelski, the Communist leader.  But everyone looked and when Marshall Jarulzelski, this powerful communist leader stood next to the Pope, all could see that his knees were shaking.  Years later he admitted he was overcome with awe in the face of someone he knew was so powerful!

John Paul has canonized 477 new saints to inspire people around the world with role models and we rejoice in his leadership.  One special way we can remember to pray in his honour this week and in this month of October, is to pray the rosary.  This week is not only the 25^th anniversary of the Pope but it is also the end of the year of the Rosary and everyone knows how important Mary is to John Paul and to all of us.

So be thankful that young Karol Wojtyla did not turn away when God called and pray for the courage to answer God’s call when it comes to us.  It may be to give up possessions or it may be to give up our pride or to have the courage to stand up for others.  And just as "Il Papa" has been strengthened by the Eucharist to serve far longer than most could have, we too can be strengthened by the Eucharist here today so that we have the courage to follow Jesus in our own way when he calls.