It was a great, touching, but also joyful meeting of faith. I recall the words of one journalist. He wrote that there was a clear impression that all these people, who came from all parts of the world, were glad to be together. That is it: they enjoyed it! They rejoiced because they lived a sublime spiritual moment together. The title “blessed” was not given to a cardboard hero, invented by a media circus, but a real, real man. Man, who became Pope, remained among men and traveled the paths of the world to speak of God and his love for every creature. It was a recognition of the sacred life of man, the Pope, but at the same time also an appreciation for those who shared and continue to share the evangelical passion of this man, this Pope.
An unforgettable scene. Benedict XVI proclaims the blessed his immediate predecessor and for the first time ever the modern Pope has done so. Meanwhile, on the central façade of the Vatican Basilica, the canvas began to rise and slowly reveal one feature after another, the face of John Paul II. It was a photo taken by an excellent Polish photographer, Grzegorz Gałąka, while the Pope was meeting a group of children while visiting one of the Roman parishes. Karol Wojtyła had a sweet, serene gaze and directly conveyed to people the great wealth of fatherhood – human and spiritual fatherhood – which he himself received as a gift. But in his eyes, in his good eyes, there remained a little irony – perhaps an external expression of his spiritual freedom or amazement with which he always looked at the great works of the Creator – which he had already had in photographs with his schoolmates at the end of the last year of Wadowice’s high school.
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaw BM Publishing House, Krakow 2013
