“Let us not be needlessly and too humanly curious to know ahead of time who [the next Pope] will be,” said the vicar-general of Rome today during the second of nine memorial masses celebrated for the late Pope John Paul II.

According to the tradition of the Church, nine memorial masses, called “novendiali,” are celebrated after the funeral of a Pope. One mass is held each day; they are usually presided by different cardinals.

“Let us instead be open to welcoming in prayer, trust and love he who the Lord will give us [as the next Pope],” he said in his homily.

Christians are grateful to God for the 26 years of faithful service of John Paul II as leader of the universal Church, continued the cardinal, and they are also grateful to the Church of Krakow and to the Polish nation, where John Paul II was born, received his faith and acquired his admirable Christian and human qualities.

"The Church that John Paul II had always wanted, and today continues to ask us to be, is a Church that is not closed in on itself, a Chruch that is not timid or discouraged, but a Church that burns with the love of Christ for the salvation of all people,” Cardinal Ruini said.

The cardinal then reflected on the days following the death of Pope John Paul and the late pontiff’s April 8 funeral mass.

Those days “became for Rome and for the whole world, days of extraordinary unity, of openness to God and of reconciliation,” said the cardinal.

This unity was manifested, he said, because in his lifetime Pope John Paul worked for unity and demonsrated to the entire world with his life, “the integrity of his faith in Christ and the universality of the love of this same Christ, who offered himself for all people on the cross.”

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