Pope John Paul II return to the Lord

eternal rest grant unto him, o lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

real name: Karol Jozef Wojtyla.
born: 18 May 1920
died: 2 April 2005 (Saturday)

Time of death:
9:37 p.m. in Rome (Saturday)
2:37 p.m. Eastern (Saturday)
19:37 GMT
03:37am MST Sunday (Malaysian time)

Age at time of death: 84 years

report of his death on CNN.
on foxnews.
vatican report, from catholic org.
vatican report too, but from newadvent.
from abc news.
and if you like, leave your tributes of this great man here:
tributes and reflections.
or pledge a prayer.

UPDATED: 4/3/2005 07:15 PM
my thoughts:
i was not able to blog on this earlier as i was away from the house from early morning till the afternoon. it was an eventful day. i will blog about the morning mass i attended later.

the pope was one of the person i admire a lot (the other was mother teresa). and i have the privelege of seeing him in person. yes, really, but it was from a far distance. we were attending the international ’10th world youth day’ (read what is the world youth day here) convention which was held in manila, philippine in january 1995. i saw the pope from a street and he was standing at the balcony of the building where he was staying. there were hundreds of us there, waiting to catch a glimpse of him and when he emerged, we all went exicited and shouted his name and waved to him.

the second time i saw him was when we were on our way to the finale rally at the stadium. as we were walking by, his ‘popemobile’ zoomed by. but this time it was just momentarily, unlike mentioned earlier when i saw him at the balcony… it was for a longer time, he was standing there waving to us.

since there were thousands and thousands millions of people at the rally,(the paper said there were 4 millions people gathered at and around the open air stadium. it was the biggest crowd the pope had ever encountered in his entire life). we could not get to the front at all, therefore we could not get to see the pope at all at the rally (not even a glimpse). all the same we were contented to just hear his voice. i remember when we heard the announcement of his arrival, we chanted “john paul 2, we love you! john paul 2, we love you! john paul 2, we love you!” and throughout the rally, now and then, we would break into this chant.

now that he is gone, and seeing the many people who weep for him and prayed for him, i can safely say, they would ever be willing to chant along with me “john paul 2, we love you! john paul 2, we love you! john paul 2, we love you! john paul 2, we love you!”

rest in peace, beloved holy father, i do love you.

(free live streaming video of st peter’s square available at the catholic online go direct here