Meeting a 'Blessed'

The day has come. It's been roughly 3 years, 5 months and 3 days since I began reading "Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II" (by George Weigel) and meeting the man of the 20th century, the Pope like no other pontiff before him, one of the most influential men of international religious, political and cultural realms. But now the day has come when I've finished the 864 page one-way conversation with the man who has now, deservedly so by this bloggers standards, received the 'Blessed' title, on his way to full sainthood. My goal was to finish the book long ago and I continued to adjust my completion date but I finally made it my resolve a month ago to finish the book by JPII's beatification - and today I'm proud to say I finished. However, now that I'm finished with the book I feel as though my conversation about the life and actions of Pope John Paul II is finished, which brings both inspiration and sadness. Inspiration because of the life he led and the radical christian discipleship he portrayed yet sadness because my conversation has ended. Still I know I can open another book inspired by him or written by him and explore the mind and spirit of Blessed John Paul II. I underlined my lines and quotes in the book and I would like to share with you a paragraph from the last page of the book:
"Karol Wojtyla came to resemble G.K. Chesterton's description of Thomas More: 'he was above all things, historic: he respresented at once a type, a turning-point and an ultimate destiny. If there had not been that particular moment, the whole of history would have been different."
Amen to that. If God had not perfectly planned to have his young Polish servant stand up to lead His church the whole of history and the whole of the future would have been different. Thank god for the humble blessed servant we were given, and for me finally finishing his longest biography (at least the first part - now onto part II).