Thirteen years ago this week, on Saturday, April 2, 2005, St. John Paul II passed away in his apartment above St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. To say he was a humble servant is true, but to say that he shared in the history of Poland, Europe and the world through his holy orders and papacy is to understate his role in enabling freedom for men of goodwill.
In first century Judaism, there were many views concerning what happened to people after they died. Following a very venerable tradition, some said that death was the end, that the dead simply returned to the dust of the earth from which they came. Others maintained that the righteous dead would rise at the close of the age. Still others thought that the souls of the just went to live with God after the demise of their bodies. There were even some who believed in a kind of reincarnation.