Blessed John Paul II and prayer: one cardinal's witness

(Vatican Radio) Veronica Scarisbrick brings you a feature focusing on the prayer life of Blessed John Paul II as witnessed by Cardinal Roberto Tucci Sj, the chief organizer of almost all of this Polish Pontiff's pastoral journeys abroad.

Certainly during these journeys more often than not tv cameras zoomed on John Paul II in personal prayer in public moments relaying images of him kneeling in silence while all around the faithful waited for ceremony to begin.

But according to Cardinal Tucci these moments were even more lengthy and intense during private moments of prayer. Sometimes he relates, he was so absorbed in prayer that he lost all sense of time and the day got off to a late start: "..I was anxious about the programme because perhaps we were already late ...he would stay minimum three quarters of an hour first thing in the morning ...he was a man who was in continous dialogue with our Lord and with the Mother of God. His great devotion to Our Lady derived not only from his Polish roots but also from the French Saint Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort...Through prayer he was open to all cultural realities and discussed the difficult problems he had to face with the Lord ..."

In this programme we also discover how as an Archbishop back in Poland it seems that Karol Wojtyla would often write documents as he knelt on a prie dieu.

Listen to this programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick: