Six years since he died, after Marie Simon-Pierre's divine healing (she was suffering from Parkinson's disease), the Pope John Paul II was beatified on May 1st, in San Pietro Square, in Rome.
Just as in the Capital an opulent ceremony was planned, in San Pietro della Ienca, a small village of Abruzzo, loved by the deceased Pope, was waiting for the beatification of its most important guest in a different way, in harmony with simplicity of Nature, which surrounds the town.
San Pietro della Ienca is a small burgh near the towns Assergi and Camarda, and placed at an altitude of 1166 meters above sea. Its origins are ancient as much as the traditions of Abruzzo. For a long time, this town was solitary and unknown, shrouded by Nature, which seemed to hide a jewel of ancient and but still intact beauty.
One
day in San Pietro della Ienca and its small stone church, the last prayer
refuge for shepherds who pastured their sheep on high mountains, received a
unexpected visit. The Archbishop of Krakow, Stanislao Dziwisz, tells that one
morning, the Pope Wojtyla, who wanted to go skiing on Gran Sasso Mountain, was stopped by a snow storm
and was forced to go back.
From the Vasto Street, he caught sight of the
small stone church and the white houses, which looked like many small sheep
around their old shepherd. Charmed by that image, Wojtyla wanted to visit
the solitary town. From then on, the Pope visited San Pietro della Ienca many
times and the town became his spiritual refuge, where he could find his peace
and tranquility and God by Nature, far away from the chaos and confusion of Rome. In 1995, after he
was seized by a illness during a mass, Wojtyla came back to San Pietro della
Ienca to recover his health and to pray inside the small stone church.
Today, six years since he died, San Pietro della Ienca still
remembers him with a bronze sculpture (a oeuvre by Fiorenzo Bacci). The town
has become the Official Pope Paul II's Sanctuary and many pilgrims have visited
it to remember John Paul II and to find God through the Nature as he did.
