John Paul II live on 5, delayed on 13, 4 and 7

On Easter Sunday morning, at 9:30 in Rome, John Paul II will appear on the improvised altar in Saint Peter’s Square, in Vatican City. He will say his Easter Mass and then deliver his Easter Message "To the City and to the World."

The Philippines is seven hours ahead of Rome, in real actual time. So it will come to us, by satellite television, at 4:30 in the afternoon, on Easter Sunday. It will be carried live on ABC 5, in Manila. And live on all the outlets of ABC, all over the country.

"Live" means that when John Paul starts the Mass, with the sign of the cross, here in the Philippines we see him as he does it, and we hear his words while he is actually saying them. So, if anything unexpected happens during this Mass, we see it as it happens. On one public occasion, in Saint Peter’ Square, an assassin shot John Paul in the abdomen. Those who were watching that telecast "live" saw John Paul as the bullet hit him. They heard the shot. They saw the assassin.

"Delayed" means that the event is recorded on videotape, and televised at a later time. When you watch a delayed telecast, you see and hear everything that happened, exactly as it happened, but you are watching something that took place at an earlier time. You are watching an actual, honest record.

ABC 5 will play the Mass and Message, Live, as they happen, from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Easter Sunday. At 9:00 p.m. IBC-13 will come on the air with the Mass and Message. It will run from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. At 9:30 p.m., just after the basketball games of the PBA, NBN 4 will telecast both Mass and Message – from 9:30 p.m. until Midnight.

At Midnight GMA 7 will come in with the Message. And then, early in the morning of Monday, April 21, Easter Monday, they will telecast the Mass. NBN 4 will play both Mass and Message from 9:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. on Easter Sunday morning. All of these TV networks: ABC, IBC, NBN and GMA will telecast these programs on all their provincial outlets, simultaneously with Manila.

John Paul, himself, is a fascinating figure. Bent and worn, near to exhaustion from the stress and strain of his long years as the Vicar of Christ, he is still the natural, dynamic leader of the world campaign for peace. Every time he appears in public, he calls all of the children of God to prayer, begging them to pray for peace.

He makes no distinction between those of different religious beliefs. He feels that peace is a deep, universal concern. So he appeals to all the "children of God" – whether they are Muslim or Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu, Christian or Born Against.

He has consecrated World Communications Day, on June 1, to "Media in the Service of Peace," and he himself is leading the way. His satellite telecasts from the Vatican are the most viewed religious programs in the television industry. John Paul tries to lead us all in prayer. Relying on the words of Our Lord in the Gospel: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name – there am I in the midst of them."

The English commentator for both the Mass and the Message is Archbishop John P. Foley, American, from Philadelphia, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. His commentary is so beautiful, so complete, and so graciously done, that the televiewer really understands the ceremonies better than those who are present in Saint Peter’s Square.

The camera work is done by RAI – the Italian National Radio and Television Network, along with the staff, and the equipment, of Vatican Radio. They do not try to make the Mass and the Message entertainment. They shoot in with reverence, as a religious event. But the beauty of the Square, filled with thousands of flowers especially with tulips from Holland, is breathtaking. The Swiss Guards, and the faces of people from all over the world, wrapped in prayer, rivet your attention. You realize – this is not fiction; this is reality! These are real people from every nation, hungry for God. You see the souls of men, as they really are, in the eyes of the blacks, in the eyes of the South Americans, in the eyes of the Orthodox Christians from Russia, and from the Middle East.

The TV program from Hollywood features good-looking performers. The satellite telecasts from the Vatican concentrate on competence. The voices of all those who read are crystal clear, no matter what the language. The voices of the boy sopranos of the Sistine Choir come to us, from halfway around the world, sounding like the angles over the hills of Bethlehem. And John Paul, for all his years and his illness, still smiles and calls out in a clean clear voice that echoes through the streets of Rome and all over the world:

"John Paul Two Loves You!"

In his Easter Message, the Holy Father will certainly plead for peace Then, having done this, he will greet more than 50 nations of the world in their own native languages. He greets the Filipinos in Tagalog. His Tagalog is not the world’s best, but it is enough to make the Filipino pilgrims, gathered in the courtyard before him, cry out with joy. They laugh, shout, cheer, and wave banners. And, in every television control room in this country, when the technicians hear him greeting us personally, they cheer. John Paul has a charism that has touched the heart of the world.

There is a remote hope that – some time during this Year 2003 – he will fly to India, to Calcutta, to beatify Mother Teresa when that beatification comes to pass, there is at least a possibility that he will come to Manila.

He has been to the Philippines three times:

• The first visit was accidental. He was then a Cardinal only, not yet Holy Father, on his way to Australia. The plane touched down in Manila; the delay was three hours; he wanted to say Mass and was directed to Baclaran Church. It was a Wednesday evening. He said Mass on the main altar, and was overwhelmed by the devotion of the Filipino people.

• The second was 1981, when he beatified Lorenzo Ruiz, and the other Nagasaki-martyrs, in the Luneta. This time, he saw the whole Philippines, from Baguio to Davao.

• The third was World Youth Day in 1995, when he gathered the largest crowd ever assembled by mortal man, so densely packed and not even he could get through it, though he was in the Pope Mobile, guided by the Police and the Military. They flew him to Grandstand in a helicopter.

There was almost a fourth, in January of this year, for the fourth World Meeting of Families. Forbidden to travel by his doctors, he did the next best thing: he appeared on a wide screen in the Luneta, on inter-active satellite television.

When he was leaving us in 1995, he said, at the airport: "The Pope is well in the Philippines! ..... I want to return! ..... I do not know how, but I want to return!"

Maybe he will!