St. John Paul II...pray for us

My wife getting a kiss from Pope John Paul II in 1995

Today is the 10th anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II.  I remember I was at my then fiance's house watching the non-stop news coverage and when the news came across that he died, I burst into tears.  My wife actually met him back in 1995 and she has a picture of him kissing her on the forehead.  When I started dating her and saw that picture in her living room, I started to wonder who she was!  I couldn't believe she met him.

Our Campus Ministry office was founded a few months after he died so our founding Campus Minister, Fr. Andrew Nelson, named the campus ministry office after Pope John Paul II.  We have a number of pictures of him hanging in campus ministry and we renamed it the Saint John Paul II Campus Ministry Center back in October on his first feast day.

May Saint John Paul II continue to watch over our work and in the words of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) at the pope's funeral:

We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father.