The canonisation of John Paul II is a special call to each and every one of us that we entrust anew our whole life to Christ and take the example of the newly Saint and asking for intercession, take the road of the holy.
The pontificate of Saint John Paul II changed the course of the world’s history, transforming the minds and hearts of hundreds of millions of people. In the course of the Holy Father’s agony, death and funeral, we were witnesses to an enormous manifestation of respect, closeness and love for him, to such a massive scale never before encountered in the history of mankind. On his death bed John Paul II was in the company of hundreds and thousands of people who kept vigil, the majority young, massed across St Peter’s Square – in common prayer day and night – companions in spirit to the dying Pope. On Saturday, April 2, on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday at 21:37, the Holy Father quietly whispered ‘amen’ and departed to the house of the Lord.
During this time about 100,000 faithful said the rosary prayer on St Peter’s Square. At the news of John Paul II’s passing, everyone knelt and a deep silence fell. Then the rosary prayer was continued. At the same time, millions of people across the entire world were steeped in prayer. People were spontaneously massing across squares, in churches, so as to be as one in prayer and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament to say penance and take confession.
St John Paul II’s desire as expressed in his Testament was fulfilled completely – that Jesus make his death “one especially ‘instructive’ (…) for the Salvation of humankind.” We were witness to the enormous miracle of Christ’s love touching untold millions of people through the suffering and death of John Paul II. It is only the Lord who knows how many across the world as a result of this opened wide their hearts to Christ – taking the sacrament of repentance and confession, deciding to follow in the footsteps of Christ every day, on the narrow way of faith (Matt. 7:14).
Thanks to the intercession of St John Paul II, there occurred – not only then but equally as continues to this very day – numerous conversions and miraculous healings, whenever someone turns to him with a plea for help or intercession before God, as did a former atheist and hardened Communist in the published testimony below.