He was always very meticulously preparing for the Holy Week – says Prelate Paweł Ptasznik. – Every year it was special. On a daily basis it was like this: after breakfast the Holy Father was on the terrace for an hour. He prayed and meditated. Then, he came back and we worked. He dictated to me sentence by sentence, the text logically arranged already in its entirety. If he had written it by hand, there would have been no corrections. Finally, he was asking to read aloud what he dictated, and he would usually ask me: “What do you think about this?” At first, it was difficult for me. What could I think of what the Pope wrote?! And, he said, “Write on one page for tomorrow.” It was different with Good Thursday. The Prelate mentions that the Letter to priests was a document that John Paul II created himself from beginning to end. He wanted this text to be an inspiration to us – he said. – The last letter was unique. He is saying there that he is thinking about us priests while in hospital, on treatment and rehabilitation, sick among the sick and in the Eucharist combines his suffering with the suffering of Christ. It refers to the mystery of the Eucharist and self-sacrifice. You can see in this letter that he is saying goodbye to us – priests, leaving us, we can say, a testament to the priestly ministry. The credo.
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
