Remembering Pope John Paul's message

Fifteen years ago, a priest from Most Precious Blood parish in south St. Louis called me with an offer I couldn't refuse.

"Hey," he said, "You want to go see the pope?" The Rev. Pat Ryan procured tickets for four Methodists to see John Paul II at what was then called the Trans World Dome. And so it was that in January 1999, three youth and I went to see the head of the Vatican state and the worldwide leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The pope doesn't come to your town very often.

I remember a lot about that day: How long it took -- endless -- for clerics to take their seats on the main floor; the flashbulbs popping as John Paul circled the perimeter in the popemobile; the availability of communion to non-Catholics because of the "extraordinary circumstance" of the pontiff's presence; and the backstage meeting between John Paul and a certain athlete named Mark McGwire, at the time a hero for slugging 70 home runs the season before.

Two moments were especially poignant: One had to do with the reaction John Paul produced inside the TWA Dome; the other had to do with something the pope said in his written remarks, laboriously read in English from a wooden throne chair constructed specially for him.

First, the reaction to John Paul: As a lifelong Protestant, I see the pope as a man to be respected, as a head of state, as the principal cleric in the world's largest Christian denomination. But to everyone around me, the pope was Christ's representative on Earth, the current occupant of the chair of St. Peter. Their faces were -- and let me try my best to avoid exaggeration here -- aglow with awe. Even if I don't share the thrill, it is gratifying to know that a religious leader can evoke that kind of response, even in today's cynical age.

Now, to what the pope said: Somewhere in his prepared homily, the pope asked Catholics to "come home" to the church. Friends, that's a message that'll preach, regardless of denomination.

Sept. 15 is National Back to Church Day, although any Sunday actually fits that bill. It's an organized effort to reclaim the inactive, the disaffected, the disappointed, the betrayed and the hurt. Despite all of the faults of church -- after all, the church is just people -- it was called into existence by Jesus himself in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus wanted us to be together, and being together is sometimes messy.

I'm looking forward to this morning. A new church is holding its first public worship today at 11 a.m., and I'm planning to attend. It has the added benefit of being pretty close to where I live. It's a little church at Highway 34 West and Route U outside of Burfordville. Happens to be Methodist. I've got no skin in the game -- I'm not on staff there. I have no formal connection except I like some of the people connected with the founding of this new Christian outpost. If you're looking to come home or come back to church, this may be an opportunity. Sometimes it's easier to get going again with a worshipping community when everybody is brand-new. It'll probably get messy at some point down the line. But that's OK. God is there, and that's enough for me.

Dr. Jeff Long is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation, is part-time faculty at Southeast Missouri State University and is a retired United Methodist clergyman.