A Pilgrim's Progress

By NANCY GIBBS

You feel smaller when your father dies because he was strong and lifted you, carried you and taught you, and when he's gone the room feels too big without him. So it was in St. Peter's Square, where pilgrims kept vigil, their faces traced in low light by candles, murmuring "Don't leave us." Among the believers was almost disbelief that death still comes even to a man this strong--the Holy Father who had carried his people so far, lifted them so high, taught them so much and now finally was slipping away.

The bells began tolling at 10:37 Saturday night, an hour after he breathed his last. Thus passed Karol Jozef Wojtyla, Vicar of Jesus Christ and head of the billion-member Roman Catholic Church, dead at 84 after a life spent walking in Christ's rugged path

"Be not afraid" was his motto as he lived his faith and faced his death. The man, once an actor, always a witness, who had taken the teachings of his church to more people in more corners of the world than any other Pope in history, would not miss the chance to deliver one last lesson. Every camera would be on him: "If it doesn't happen on television," he once said, "it doesn't happen." So the sight of his suffering was an invitation to mercy; his courage a gift of example; his power made perfect in weakness.

From his window he greeted the crowds on Easter morning and again on Wednesday, visibly frustrated at being unable to utter one last blessing, one more prayer. "Those two appearances may have been what did it," despaired a high Vatican official, as though the fate of such a man could hang on such decisions. "If he had stayed inside, he wouldn't have risked infection." By Thursday the decline was swift. Even as the U.S. continued its great debate over when to remove a feeding tube, the Vatican revealed the Pope was on one. Terri Schiavo, once a private, ordinary woman, had no choice about whether her death would be a passion play for an audience caught in an argument over when life begins and ends. The Pope, a very public and extraordinary man, made sure his message was clear: that life is God's alone to give--and to take.

His spokesman wept as he shared the final journey. Awake and serene, the Pope had no desire to return to the hospital for a third time in two months even as his fever rose and his heart failed. Instead, according to Edmund Cardinal Szoka, he lay with his head propped up on pillows, blessing his disciples as they knelt at his bedside, and being blessed by them. He received the sacrament reserved for the dying, heard the Stations of the Cross. Hours later he was slipping in and out of consciousness, his breathing shallow, his organs failing. News came Saturday of his final, halting words. "You have come to me," he said, "and I thank you," though whether he was talking to his brothers around him, the pilgrims outside or the waiting Lord above, there was no way to know.

The last glimpse of him high above the square became the latest in an album of images he left behind: a kiss on the tarmac in each new city; a smile lit by love and certainty; a white robe stained red by a would-be assassin's bullet, and the public forgiveness that followed; a challenge thrown down before prisoners and Presidents, sinners and saints to heed the highest calling of their hearts. He was the first Pope ever to visit a mosque, or launch a website, or commemorate the Holocaust at Auschwitz or find in a broken world so many saints of the church--more saints, in fact, than all his predecessors combined. Master of a dozen languages, he was the first modern Pope to visit Egypt, Spain, Canada, Cuba, Ireland or Brazil, the equivalent of circling the globe 31 times. To half the world's people, he was the only Pope they have ever known, or mourned. Thus the prayers came not just from the Catholic faithful but also from Muslims in France and Jews at Jerusalem's Western Wall and from believers across Eastern Europe who before his crusade against tyranny would have had to mourn him in secret. Even those who disagreed with his goals were touched by his goodness and came out to honor the man who made history itself kneel down.

Now attention turns to the College of Cardinals, whose 117 voting members began to stream into Rome from 52 countries to pay their respects and write the next chapter of the church's history. Later this month they will meet in the Sistine Chapel, already swept for hidden microphones, to choose the next Pontiff. There will be plenty of intrigue in the days to come: "The battles to take care of everyone's own interests have been abounding," a Roman Curia Cardinal told TIME. But in the final days many were struck by the sudden transparency of the Vatican's thick walls. Reports on the Pope's condition were clear and regular; the press office was open around the clock. It was as though church officials were following his instructions not to miss the opportunity embedded in grief.

It is of some comfort, when we wait for those we love to die, to celebrate the way they lived. For Christians this is a season of mystery and grace, and during the final days, John Paul II gave his people one last gift: the message of his visible pain and transcendent love, like a bell ringing out over St. Peter's Square, clear and resounding as it carried up to heaven. --With reporting by Jeff Israely and Giancarlo Zizola/Rome

With reporting by Jeff Israely, Giancarlo Zizola/Rome