Last Friday, I turned on the television around lunch time. It must have been the exact moment the first reports of Pope John Paul II's death were relayed to the public.

I did not know exactly what to think or how to feel, but I did know where to go. After nearly sprinting down to College Church, I walked in to see no one was there. Though confused at the sheer absence of people, I knelt, prayed for a short while, walked back to my apartment and turned the television on again-I must have missed something. More people should have been at church moments after the Pope died.

In fact, it was the Italian media who had missed something. They and many other news sources around the world, for whatever reason, were duped into reporting Pope John Paul II's death about 24 hours prematurely.

Initially, for a fleeting moment, I was embarrassed for my hasty trek to the church-I had not even showered. Here is this man I have never even seen in person. He is just a man.

Yet, in the midst of my embarrassment, that very thought made me feel eternally closer to him-Karol Wojtyla, who was just a man.

During spring break, I traveled to Italy with my family. While we where in Rome, the Holy Father was still in the hospital recovering from a tracheotomy. But I do recall wondering, while standing atop the Dome of St. Peter's, how long it had been since he had made the same journey and looked over the Eternal City. From there, you could see the mountains touched with snow.

He saw those same mountains many times and, perhaps, had the same thoughts as I. They were the hills Hannibal crossed; they peered into the city and saw the rule of the great Caesars; and they were the same mountains that St. Paul had gazed upon from his prison cell.

Karol Wojtyla was also a skier. In the midst of those lofty ruminations of humanity's peaks, like me, he probably also had visions of racing down the mountainside in exhilaration. It's comforting to reflect on such a powerful man in such a humanistic manner-which is why it is both a cruel trick and a blessing that such an individual's death inspires such thoughts.

For some Catholics, it is indeed odd to think of him merely as a man. His picture is in the front of our Bibles; for the past 26 years we have prayed for him at each and every Mass. He is, in an abstract way, the human manifestation of our iconography. In spite of this, Karol Wojtyla was, in fact, very human. Without realizing this, we cannot truly appreciate anything remarkable about his passing.

Yet, it did not take his death to realize many remarkable things about his life. John Paul II was the most beloved pope of the past century (and perhaps longer). He embraced so fully what it is to be Catholic, demanding that this religion live up to the meaning of its name, "universal."

True, many detractors challenged his and the Church's struggle with modernity. While they did so, he took advantage of an age of splendid communication and easy travel to visit more countries than any critic could name, and spread Christ's words of love and human dignity. What could be more "modern"?

By refusing to yield the Church's teachings on homosexuality, abortion or liberation theology in even the slightest way, many balked at the pope's failure to keep contemporary with the needs of humanity. In the midst of these chides, John Paul chose not to listen.

Instead, he busied himself meeting and sharing his love with more "contemporary humans" than most people lay eyes upon in a lifetime.

To the pope, persistence was of his faith-a committed conviction to the constant truth in God's word. Such should be the certainty of the world's most prominent religious leader. This certainly transcends any label of liberal, conservative or confusions of what is truly "modern."

As catalytic as the political or diplomatic contributions Pope John Paul II offered in the past quarter century, he truly will be remembered as a man of great visibility and gestures. This, however, is not as hallowed as it sounds.

God's vicar made himself known and accessible to all of the people of the world. Should not the word of God be this way? His gesture was to demand that we, God's people, see the dignity He endowed upon every life.

Pope John Paul II was just a man, but this is no reason to feel more distant from him. Instead, it is all the reason to love and respect him more. What other single man, in our lifetime, has made such resounding gestures? What human could hope to achieve more?

For this, he will always be remembered. Hopefully, when we refer to him years from now, it will still be as one Italian newspaper dubbed him: "il Papa che ha cambiato la storia del mondo"-The pope who has changed the history of the world.

Robert Seefeldt is a senior studying accounting.