First of all, I remember John Paul II as a titan of work. I used to go to Castel Gandolfo regularly during the summer. I discussed with the Pope the publications of individual documents that he wrote during his vacations. We printed three volumes of his teaching collections a year. Over a thousand pages each! In different languages, of course. I also remember discussing the details of the edition of the Roman Triptych. He was very much connected with this text; he carried it in his heart. I arrived on a hot day. There was a morning Mass upstairs in an apartment in the Pope’s summer residence. After the holy Mass, Sister Tobiana, who was preparing breakfast, called me into the kitchen and offered me coffee. After a while, I hear his deep voice behind my back, always playful in tone: “Do not overdo it with this coffee, because it will hurt you!” And, the laughter of the Pope, Father Stanislaus and other people. He had a great fatherly love for me, and there, in Castel Gandolfo, this warmth was felt perhaps even more clearly than in the Vatican. You breathed the vacation atmosphere there. I often walked through the gardens in the afternoon when the Holy Father went to the pool. He swam regularly; this provided him with great physical form. He was always in the company of the same gendarme, Gianluca, who was supposed to belay the Holy Father in the water. Those were the times!
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
