Blessed John Paul II still evangelizing, Vatican spokesman says

(May 09, 2011) Pope John Paul II's May 1^st beatification was a "powerful return" of the Polish Pontiff, who is continuing his work of evangelization from heaven, according to the Vatican spokesman. Speaking in the latest edition of "Octava Dies" of Vatican Television, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, recounted the feelings of the late Pope's long-time secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, at the exhumation of the coffin of Pope John Paul from the tomb in the crypt below St. Peter’s Basilica on the eve of his beatification, April 30. When the coffin was hauled up from the open tomb, the cardinal, who is Archbishop of Krakow, said, "I thought: Here he is, coming back to us!" The Jesuit priest said that for the believer, "John Paul II had always been alive and present,” but his beatification has represented a powerful return for him among the people of God in prayer and celebration. "John Paul II,” he said, “knew he had the mission of taking the Church into the third millennium, and at the end of the Great Jubilee he said to us, he said to all of God’s people: 'Duc in altum! Put out into the deep!'" Father Lombardi affirmed that the Church does go "into the deep sea of the third millennium but knows it can continue to count on the support of an effective intercessor who invites us not to be afraid."