Crossing The Threshold of Hope By Pope John Paul II : A reading highlight

Crossing The Threshold of hope, a book, which contains the written responses of Pope to the interview questions of Italian Radio and television, edited by Vittorio Messori, published by Random House Large Print in association with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., new York, 1994. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book during this spring break and I think it will be appropriate to share the highlights of this book, which may benefit others during this special celebration of our Popes beatification. Some of the the interview questions posed to him were really challenging or one may even call it some what harsh in nature, While majority of the questions were very interesting in nature. The very idea of interviewing the head of the church for live faith responses is modern, and using the media to evangelize the world is Pope John Paul II's specialty, novelty,and even simplicity. Reading this book one can get in to the perspectives of a loving shepherd's heart, one can witness the majesty of simplified teaching of the pope,one can experience the integration of mysticism and rationalism in explaining the faith, one can vividly see the simple child like heart and that contained joy in everything around him, one can see his confession of absolute dependency in Holy Spirit, One can find the place for intellectualism, science, technology in faith, one can understand the biblical underpinnings of the church teachings, one can also find the Pope handling the questions by casually analyzing them along the lines of scripture, one can admire the articulations and down to earth substantiating teachings of our beloved pope, above all one can see the Pope as a well equipped teacher of the gospel in this book.

The first chapter is title as " The Pope" : A scandal and a mystery, which is the portion of the first interview question. From the out set, I found this question as a very harsh question and I considered it as very un- respectful or unholy way of questioning the Pope, which sounded absurd to me. I entered in to that chapter with mounting curiosity to learn what Pope told them in reply. To me Pope John Paul can handle anything, he will face anything or encounter any challenge with great courage and authenticity, which he portrayed in all his decision all along his papacy. He was a courageous leader, who loved God's creation, and he found goodness in everything. With this preconceived ideas and convictions in my mind, I wanted to learn how he handled this question, so curiosity was mounting and I began to read this chapter. As usual, in his unique style, he has explained the question very gracefully and majestically. I loved the way Pope answered that question. He dissected the question and summed the cause for the question in to two concepts such as lively faith and the anxiety. He said this question comes from the faith and the anxiety which coincide in human at the same time. And he began to anser the question with substantiating each of his answers with scripture. His first answer was : "Be not afraid" He supported his answer by giving examples from bible such as angel told Mary be not afraid, angel told Joseph be not afraid...... . Then he proceeds to explain the faith and anxiety prevailed within peter simultaneously and how holy Spirit confirms the faith of the Peter. Further he develops the role of the pontiff in being the peter successor, the Christ vicar. In addition, he explains the ( scandal part) contradiction of the world view from God's view, and therefore how the world view could confront and contradict the views of the church.Finally, he concludes the chapter with the vested responsibilities of the Pope of the Vicar of Christ.

Second chapter is titled as : Praying : How and why?