VATICAN CITY, SEP 12, 2002 (VIS) - John Paul II presided yesterday evening in the Vatican Basilica at the funeral of Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, O.P., who died on September 8 in Rome. The Eucharistic Liturgy was celebrated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, vice deacon of the College of Cardinals, along with the other cardinals.
In the homily, the Pope recalled that Cardinal Moreira Neves "entered the Order of Preachers very young." In his will he said: "I loved this vocation passionately," and he added: "I hope to die keeping completely faithful to the essence of the Dominican vocation."
"In these long years marked by illness," continued the Holy Father, "his incessant cooperation for the good of his brothers became even more apostolic and in a certain sense, became more effective in virtue of his intimate union with the Our Lord Jesus."
In his testament, John Paul II said, the cardinal affirmed: "In a perspective of faith and obedience to the adorable will of God, I thank him also for my illness. ... The certainty that with this suffering I have entered into communion with the Passion of Christ, that I have tried a part of purgatory and that I have collaborated, more than with any preaching, in the redemption of my brothers, consoles me."
The Pope indicated that "in the face of the mystery of death, for the man who has no faith everything can seem irreparably lost. But the word of Christ lights up the way and gives value to everything. Jesus Christ is the Lord of life. ... Our brother lived his whole existence precisely on this horizon of faith."
Cardinal Moreira Neves directed his last thought to "the search for Christ's face," affirmed the Holy Father. The cardinal "wanted to conclude his own spiritual will by expressing one last desire: "I would like it to be written on my grave only the words of the psalm: 'Vultum tuum, Domine quaesivi."
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