I’d recommend this CNN special, that aired this evening, and will air again tomorrow (Sunday) at 7 and 10 Eastern. There’s a page on the program here, with a few clips linked.

CNN "Faith and Values" correspondent Delia Gallagher reports the program, and in her hands, the program is completely different than, say, what anyone at ABC, NBC or CBS could do with it, not only because of Gallagher’s expertise, but because of her mostly unobtrusive presence in the program. While other nets would have Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer of Stone Phillips nodding wisely in every other shot during interviews, none of that here. Gallagher remains mostly in the background, in some long shots of interview sessions even remaining unlit, with the spotlight on the one interviewed. And who’s interviewed? Just about anyone you’d care to hear from ,including several who were present in John Paul’s room in those last days and hours.

I was particularly engaged by Mother Thekla Famiglietti, a Brigittine nun  – the Superior of the Order – who was a close friend of the Pope, there with him in those days, who presents a lovely, hope-filled portrait of what she witnessed. In relation to the funeral, Cardinal George relates a very touching story about the cardinals and the final journey of John Paul’s body. There are many other tidbits and images – images that will bring it all back to you, as it did me.

What it brings back is that experience of being taught how to die. Of being confronted with our future, and challenged to contemplate how we are using this time on earth right now, what the fruit of it will be, and whether or not we will have nurtured a relationship with God during our lives that will bring us to a place at the end at which, even if we suffer, we can go, trusting.

We spend a lot of time trying to describe what it means to be a Catholic, but it seems to me, where words fail, those days last year made clear. The spirituality and community that was on display last year in Rome, and indeed, around the world was about an individual, certainly, but in its mystery, it went deeper, for it wasn’t mere hero-worship, if you really look at it closely.  There was a sense of being caught up in a drama, perhaps one of the more important dramas around. It wasn’t just the drama of one important influential man’s passing. It was the drama of human suffering (in those days after Holy Week and Easter) and hope. It was the drama of redemption entering the world through the suffering of God’s son, the hope and promise of His resurrection, and the suffering of the man up in that apartment, behind the shades of those windows which burned brightly with light, even late into the night, the man whose office was the link between past and present, an office which exists as  sign of unity and continuity, encouraging us, who gathered and watched from around the world to deeper discipleship and community.

Are we there yet?