Millions of Filipinos can now claim that they have personally seen or met a  person declared “blessed” by the Church. Pope John Paul II was beatified or  declared “blessed” in ceremonies held at St. Peter’s square, by his successor,  Pope Benedict XVI. We should not be surprised if in a few years, the beloved  John Paul II will be canonized or declared a saint of the Catholic Church. 

Providentially the day of his beatification was on the feast of the Divine  Mercy, which he had instituted. In the jubilee year, 2000, he also canonized as  the first saint of the third  millennium St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun  who propagated the devotion to Jesus, the King of Mercy.

Blessed John Paul II came to our country  twice. The first time was in 1981,  during the Marcos regime. He came  to beatify the first Filipino candidate  for beatification, Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila, who was martyred centuries before in  Nagasaki, Japan. In the Pope’s speech before the President at that time, he  pointedly said that not even for the sake of national security can the human  rights of an individual be violated. During his visit, he already spoke of the  Church’s preferential option for the poor, a theme to be taken up ten years  later by the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines. He was a dynamic and  handsome Pontiff, charismatically drawing people to himself, wherever he went,  but he himself sought to make them feel the presence of someone greater than  himself, of whom he was only the servant.

The second time he visited us was in 1995, for the 10th World Youth Day  celebration. That was an unforgettable visit not only for us Filipinos but for  Pope John Paul II himself. An estimated four million people, the greatest number  of people gathered in one place for any purpose whatsoever in the history of  humankind, as one German newspaper put it. Since the popemobile could not make  it through the crowds, the Pope had to be flown by helicopter to the Luneta  grandstand. He could see for himself the vastness of the crowd that had  assembled for the Eucharist over which he was to preside. It was an ecstatic  event, a never-to-be-forgotten moment in our history and in the history of World  Youth Days. Never was the likes of it seen again, even by the Pope himself.

As I said, millions of Filipinos have a lot to say about their memories of the  Pope during these two visits. I can say that I was awed by the man as I have  never been awed by any other person I have met. There was something greater that  you felt in the man than the man himself. He gave you a sense of God. My mother  perhaps expressed it best in her untheological way. “Ganoon pala ang Papa—parang

Diyos!”  (Oh, so the Pope is like that—he is like God!), she exclaimed to me  over the phone after she saw him at the Araneta Coliseum.

Blessed Pope John Paul II will be remembered for many things. He will be  remembered as the Pope who has travelled most all over the world. No Pope in the  foreseeable future is expected to log the miles he did in proclaiming the Lord  Jesus Christ. He outdid even  St. Paul the Apostle from whom he took the second  half of his name.

He will be remembered also as the most Marian of Popes. He  dedicated his  pontificate to Mary. “Totus Tuus” (I am all yours), was his motto,  referring to  Mary.  He added the “Mysteries of Light” to the fifteen mysteries of the  Rosary.  He also wrote an encyclical letter on the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin  Mary. He is known already as the Pope of the Divine Mercy, for writing an  encyclical letter on the Divine Mercy, and for instituting the second Sunday of  Easter as the Sunday of the Divine Mercy.

He is known by the secular world as one of the big factors for the downfall of  Communism, first in his native Poland and then in the western world.

His encyclicals and pastoral exhortations are unmatched in number and influence  in the history of the Catholic Church. He wrote not only to the Catholic  hierarchy, religious and lay faithful but to people of the whole world. He was a  world-pope, if I may say so.

But in all that he said and did, John Paul II sought to manifest and impart the  presence and grace of God and Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit.