Just Beyond The Wall!

THANK YOU POPE JOHN PAUL II

In the everyday travails of life we say goodbye to the ones we love and almost simultaneously say hello to those precious beginnings of the next generation. God closes a door. He opens a window. Today ends and tomorrow brings forth new reasons for optimism. Fall follows summer. Winter follows fall. And spring begins the process all over again. The crocuses break through the hard and crusty cracks of winter and we once again sign onto the idea that even on the heels of a most bitter and frigid winter, new life, and even eternal life, is not so impossible to believe.

Pope John Paul II once wrote about a "new springtime" of faith. To some, it seemed that he might be suggesting a time that would soon come upon us of a bold and bright awakening--the coming of our Lord to bring us home. Did he know something prophetic? Truly an altogether new springtime. Is it possible?

I think back to when my father and I would literally count the days to opening day at Fenway. It typically fell sometime around the fifth of April. We'd watch the snows of March begin to melt away. We'd see the crocuses again break through. Robins would announce their presence in our front yard. And then finally "the day" would arrive. It felt like Christmas morning part two when we got into the car, took a left on Prospect Avenue, and then soared onto 1-84.

Counting the mile markers, closer and closer we'd get. When I saw the Mary E. Finn Elementary School on the right side of the highway in Southborough, Mass my excitement would begin to percolate. Mere minutes remained. A fresh new season of memories awaited us. Does it get any better than this I thought?

We'd work our way off the Allston Cambridge exit. We'd travel past the Coca Cola bottling plant on Storrow Drive, gaze happily out at the small crafts on the wide bending Charles River, and give a nod to the once used, now dormant Boston Braves Park on the right. When we arrived in Kenmore Square all was truly and in every way right with the world.

Nowadays, when I contemplate John Paul II's words about a "new springtime" they ring deeper. I want to hear those words chime now as they do in the cathedral on Sunday morning. Yes, a new springtime! And as for the days of summers past, I want the natural declines and degradations of life to be reversed. I want finally for spring to follow summer. I want an end to winter, and an end to fall! Simply because there is a father and a son eagerly awaiting a truly new and wonderful springtime together. Let the days of summers past be a mere prelude to a new beginning. Can April be far off? Jesus said: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." (Luke 20: 38 NAB)

Excerpted From Here To Eternity: My Fenway Father & Son Story by Rob Guinan; Copyright 2010; 2023