John Paul II & the Divine

A great article about the many events occurring in the life—and death—of our great pope, and from the early days of the Church, from Inside Catholic.

An excerpt.

“When Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, there were any number of fascinating coincidences that surrounded his death. They were the sort of things that make you go "hmm" and (if one is a wobbly agnostic) begin to suspect that maybe You Know Who has His hand in things after all.

“For instance, John Paul managed to go to his reward in the one sliver of time that tied together Easter, Fatima, and the Divine Mercy Feast that he himself had established (he died on Saturday evening, the Vigil of the Feast of the Divine Mercy, which falls in the Octave of Easter). Given the movable nature of the Easter feast (not to mention the moveable nature of First Saturdays, a devotion associated with the apparitions of our Lady of Fatima), this is as impressive a bit of chance, if chance it was, as you could ask for. However, like so much about his papacy, one does get the sense that such a theatrical gesture must have pleased him as he approached the Pearly Gates. It had everything: It tied together Our Lady of Fatima (on whose feast day he was shot, May 13, 1981), as well as the Third Secret of Fatima (which, in part, concerned the shooting), as well as St. Faustina, a fellow Pole whose private revelation concerning the Divine Mercy so appealed to John Paul, the author of Dives in Misericordia.

“And the weirdness doesn't end there. Seekers of signs will also find that there was a partial eclipse on the day of his funeral: God flying the flag at half staff. Nor is that all -- for it also turns out John Paul was born during a solar eclipse, too.”