Full text: Pope’s last will and testament

‘I feel indebted’
4. Being on the threshold of the third millennium “in medio Ecclesiae” (Eds: Latin for “inside the Church”) I wish once again to express gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of Vatican Council II, to which, together with the entire Church — and above all the entire episcopacy — I feel indebted. I am convinced that for a long time to come the new generations will draw upon the riches that this Council of the 20th century gave us. As a bishop who participated in this conciliar event from the first to the last day, I wish to entrust this great patrimony to all those who are and who will be called in the future to realize it. For my part I thank the eternal Pastor Who allowed me to serve this very great cause during the course of all the years of my pontificate.
“In medio Ecclesiae” ... from the first years of my service as a bishop — precisely thanks to the Council — I was able to experience the fraternal communion of the Episcopacy. As a priest of the Archdiocese of Krakow I experienced the fraternal communion among priests — and the Council opened a new dimension to this experience.
5. How many people should I list! Probably the Lord God has called to Himself the majority of them — as to those who are still on this side, may the words of this testament recall them, everyone and everywhere, wherever they are.
During the more than 20 years that I am fulfilling the Petrine service “in medio Ecclesiae” I have experienced the benevolence and even more the fecund collaboration of so many cardinals, archbishops and bishops, so many priests, so many consecrated persons — brothers and sisters — and, lastly, so very, very many lay persons, within the Curia, in the vicariate of the diocese of Rome, as well as outside these milieux.
How can I not embrace with grateful memory all the bishops of the world whom I have met in “ad limina Apostolorum” visits! (Eds: reference to required, periodic visits) How can I not recall so many non-Catholic Christian brothers! And the rabbi of Rome and so many representatives of non-Christian religions! And how many representatives of the world of culture, science, politics, and of the means of social communication!
6. As the end of my life approaches I return with my memory to the beginning, to my parents, to my brother, to the sister (I never knew because she died before my birth), to the parish in Wadowice, where I was baptized, to that city I love, to my peers, friends from elementary school, high school and the university, up to the time of the occupation when I was a worker, and then in the parish of Niegowic, then St. Florian’s in Krakow, to the pastoral ministry of academics, to the milieu of ... to all milieux ... to Krakow and to Rome ... to the people who were entrusted to me in a special way by the Lord.
To all I want to say just one thing: “May God reward you.”
“In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.” (Eds: Latin for “In your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit”)
A.D. 17.III.2000 (Eds: March 17, 2000)
13, 1992).

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