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(O sons and daughters)

(Choir) Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison

(Choir) Gloria (Missa Brevis K275 – W.A.Mozart)

(PL) We are delighted to welcome as our preacher this morning, Father Christopher Colven, Rector of Saint James, Spanish Place, London.

Cardinal Murphy O’Connor reminded us in his introductory remarks, that as we share in our Mass here in Cambridge the crowds are gathering in Rome for the canonisation of two great Popes of recent times – John XX111 and John Paul 11. Those of us who watched the Polish Pope’s funeral in 2005 saw the placards all around St Peter’s Square asking simply "santo subito" – "make him a saint as quickly as possible" – and those prayers are being answered this morning.

But things aren’t always quite what they seem. We think of John Paul as the Pilgrim Pope traversing the world, the universal pastor, encouraging, challenging, the voice of Solidarity - speaking up for the marginalised and the persecuted everywhere. One story shows that the coin has another side. When Karol Wojtyla was Archbishop of Krakow he used to visit Rome often as a member of several of the Catholic Church’s central councils. When in Rome he stayed with a friend, also a Polish Archbishop, who worked in the Vatican. The friend loved to have the future Pope as his guest. But there was a downside to these frequent visits. – for whenever Cardinal Wojtyla stayed for any length of time a new carpet had to be bought for his friend’s chapel.

Why? Because John Paul would spend hours each night lying in front of the altar in prayer: often crying out in emotion, the agitated movements of his body would soon cause the carpet to fray. It is clear that this depth of prayer – perhaps mirroring that of Jesus in Gethsemane – involved a terrible struggle to understand and accept God’s will – something manifesting itself in the interaction of body, mind and spirit.

If struggle was at the heart of John Paul’s relationship with God, it certainly characterises Saint Thomas’s reaction to the resurrection of Jesus as we have just heard in this morning's Gospel reading. Thomas wanted so much to believe – but he just could not bring himself to do so. He had seen the death of the Man he had come to accept as his Saviour: he was not going to risk being disappointed again: he knew what the grave meant and he was convinced there could be no return from it. Thomas’s hopes had died on Good Friday and, whatever his friends told him about what they had seen and touched on Easter Day, he reasoned that their minds had been turned by grief – what they thought they were witnessing was no more than an illusion, mere wish-fulfilment on their part. "Unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe". Saint Thomas and Pope John Paul stand with and for the rest of us as we struggle to believe, as we try to understand the ways of God.

And where does Pope John XX111 fit into this picture? His then secretary, who is still very much alive, tells us that when John was elected as the Successor of Saint Peter he sobbed, saying that at 78 he had begged God to allow him time to retire to "weep over my poor soul". The conventional picture of him remains, though, as someone formed in an older piety, where the certainties far outweighed any doubts, a rather cuddly, grand-fatherly figure, someone to look to for reassurance and a gentle word. But his spiritual diaries reveal something more complex. He could write: "If I have done any good in my life, it has all been by God’s grace, which would have obtained better results if I had not hampered and impeded it" and, with reference to his own upbringing, "at the sight of such poverty, in the midst of such suspicions, weighed down by so many anxieties, I often sigh and sometimes am driven to tears". Perhaps the most revealing of all the passages is this: "No one sees my sufferings, save Jesus alone".

The stories of the Doubting Apostle, and the two Popes being canonised this morning in Rome, is that saintliness comes, not because we are free from uncertainties and questioning, but because the human journey is riddled with them. There is nothing to be ashamed of in struggling to understand God’s ways: the doubts and the fears, the indecision, the circles of the mind, the just not-knowing – all this is the path which those in Heaven have already walked before us. Our hope remains that with Saint Thomas, as with John Paul II and John XXIII, we shall one day look into the face of Jesus and hear him say to each one of us: "doubt no longer but believe".

(Choir anthem)

My beloved spake and said unto me

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Organ Voluntary:

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