Believing that "war is always a defeat for humanity", John Paul spent much of his papacy trying to snatch swords to beat them into ploughshares, writes Breda O'Brien.
He broke our hearts last Easter Sunday. More than once he put his hand to his head in anguish, because he could not speak the words of blessing one more time, the words he once effortlessly rendered in 59 languages.
Helpless, stooped, old, frail, he was never more loved. He was preaching his most effective homily of all, without words, without any sound at all save the rasp of his breath. All he could do was make the sign of the cross.
When his body, battered by age, by assassination attempts, by illness, could not shape the words, he still managed to point beyond himself to the Master he had served all his life and would continue to serve until the end. He managed to bless us, by showing that it is not beauty, or talent, or charisma that abides, but faith, hope and love, and that the greatest of these is love.
Not that his life lacked either talent or charisma. Had someone decided to invent the life of Karol Wojtyla for a movie script, he or she would have been derided for an improbable plot line. He lost his mother when very young, and every other member of his family by the time he was 20.
When the Nazis came, like other Polish students he had to partake in hard physical labour, in his case in a quarry. He was protected by the men among whom he worked, who honoured his studies. He was a member of an underground theatre group, and wrote poetry. Along the way, he decided to become a priest.
As a child one of his best friends was a Jew, Jerzy Kluger, who says that the first memory he shared with the man he calls Lolek was of being chased around the town square by an irate policeman. They had tried to snatch his sword while he snoozed on a bench. When Lolek became Pope John Paul, he would spend a lot of his life trying to snatch swords to beat them into ploughshares, as the biblical image puts it.
Perhaps because he had witnessed the devastating effects of violence and war at close quarters, he believed that "war is always a defeat for humanity". Perhaps, too, it was because of his childhood friendships that he did all in his power to build bridges to the Jewish people. One of the most moving moments in his visit to Israel in 2000 was his reunion with Edith Tzirer, who was liberated from a Nazi camp as a young girl, but was exhausted and near to death. The young priest Karol Wojtyla fed her and carried her for over a mile on his back to a convoy that was taking survivors to the West. You could not make it up.
Lest such incidents be not enough, he survived Nazism only to see his country crushed by the Russians. He was to become instrumental in the eventual liberation of Poland, and in the downfall of communism. He has preached tirelessly against not only the distortions of state socialism, but the dehumanising impact of capitalism. When other voices grew weary, he never tired of advocating justice for the Third World. He has been an outstanding figure of the 20th century, and of the beginning of the 21st.
Anyone looking at the external facts of the Pope's life might only see a life packed with incident and not untouched by controversy. He did not tailor his message to the circumstances of the times, or soft-pedal unpopular positions. Certainly, his position on the ordination of women and contraception alienated some, but his unswerving moral courage fascinated others, particularly the young. For sophisticated but rootless post-modern European young people, he was a conundrum and a puzzle, but an intriguing one.
What other world leader could claim to have addressed two million young people at one meeting, not counting the millions watching at home? For countless thousands in the developing world, he was an icon. He was not universally loved, but then he never set out to be. Being loved was not his aim, but conveying the love of God was his reason for existence. As these last months went on, even those most at odds with his ideas found themselves in admiration of his moral passion, and in awe of his courage in the face of overwhelming physical disability.
His shoes will not be easy to fill, and only a fool would predict who will do so. A wise person would remember the adage: "He who enters the conclave a pope, leaves it a cardinal." It would be wise, too, to remember that the Catholic Church does not approve of cloning. Whoever succeeds him will not try to imitate Pope John Paul, but John Paul's Master. Whoever he is, he will face formidable challenges, not least the challenge of finding a language to address a secularised Europe, which increasingly elevates the individual and his or her ability to make choices above any consideration of the common good.
Fundamentalism of all kinds is on the increase, including secular fundamentalism. The deeply-rooted inequalities in our world add to the ferment of unrest. Yet there is also an authentic striving for more meaningful lives, although many in the West no longer identify that striving as religious.
John Paul's greatest legacy may not be the fall of repressive communism, or his challenge to unbridled capitalism. Looking at him these past few months, it is clear that he was following his own way of the cross, faithfully, to the end. His last few years saw his zest for sport, his talent as a communicator, his love of conversation, even his ability to eat stripped from him.
Yet what was essential to him was not taken from him. Some years ago when rumours were rife that the Pope would resign, Paul Vallely reported in the Independent that John Paul had said he would not do so,"because Christ did not descend from the cross".
For Christians, the cross is only half the story. Having staggered with dogged courage and grace along his own Via Dolorosa, that indomitable heart will surely now share in the joy of the resurrection, in the presence of the Master he loved more than life.