Good Shepherd

One of the most memorable images of Pope John Paul II from these last years of his life--perhaps one of the most memorable images ever taken of him at all--was taken in 2005 during the Via Crucis, the Good Friday marking of the Stations of the Cross. For the first time that year, John Paul II was too ill to lead the walk. But as George Weigel observes in his book The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II--The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy, in effect he still did lead it, albeit in a different way:

As Cardinal Ratzinger led the solemn procession through the ruins of antiquity, John Paul II prayed the Via Crucis while watching the ceremony at the Colosseum on a television set that had been placed in the chapel of the papal apartment. A television camera at the door of the chapel showed the world John Paul's prayer. He was seated. and grasped in his arms a large crucifix, as he prayed through the fourteen stations with the congregation near the Roman Forum. This watching at the Colosseum and on television could see only John Paul's back; his face was never shown. Contrary to press speculations, however, he was not hiding his pain or the ravages of weeks of illness. Rather, he was doing what he had always done, which was not to say, "Look at me," but rather, "Look to Christ."

An Excerpt on Pope John Paul II 

from Seven Men 

by Eric Metaxas