POMPEII, Italy — Pope John Paul II brought the Year of the Rosary to a close with a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine here Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Pope John Paul wanted the pilgrimage to have “the form of a supplication for the peace of the world.”

In a speech he read in a halting voice, the Pope called for a new movement of prayer and peacemaking to help heal the “conflicts, tensions and tragedies of every continent.”

The Pope said the rosary is an ideal prayer for peace, with its simplicity and its ability to “calm the spirit,” and is especially needed in a world “torn by winds of war and lined with blood in so many regions.”

His visit was one rich in symbolism.

When the crowd of over 30,000 pilgrims recited the rosary, at each Our Father, someone representing one of the five continents brought a lighted candle to the miraculous painting of the Virgin of the Rosary, the heart of the shrine.

“We have meditated upon the mysteries of light, as if projecting the light of Christ over the conflicts, tensions and tragedies of the five continents,” the Pope said after the praying of the Luminous Mysteries he proposed in his apostolic letter last year, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (The Rosary of the Virgin Mary).

The Pope managed to read almost all of his speech, in a clear yet fatigued voice. Recently he was unable to complete the reading of a weekly catechesis at the Vatican.

Whenever he paused while delivering his speech, the pilgrims filled the void with enthusiastic applause and cheers of “Viva il Papa,” that faded away at the right time.

This pilgrimage, the Pope's 143rd trip inside Italy, seemed to encompass the 25 years of his pontificate. John Paul had visited the shrine in 1979 to celebrate the first anniversary of his election and returned during his silver jubilee.

At the beginning of the Year of the Rosary, he entrusted the apostolic letter to the “loving hands of the Virgin Mary, prostrating myself in spirit before her image in the splendid shrine built for her by Blessed Bartolo Longo, the apostle of the rosary.”

The Pompeii shrine is an imposing basilica, famous for its great healings and conversions, built by Blessed Bartolo and dedicated in 1891. The painting was brought to Pompeii in a horse-drawn cart by Blessed Bartolo in 1875. Several people who have prayed in front of it have experienced miraculous cures.

Blessed Bartolo (1841-1926) was a layman who published books and a magazine about the rosary, popularized a devotion called the Fifteen Saturdays of the Rosary, promoted the Rosary Novena, undertook many social and charitable works and started the order of the Daughters of the Rosary of Pompeii. The Pope beatified him on Oct. 20, 1980, and quoted him five times in Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

The shrine's setting itself provided symbolism, as the Pope noted. The ruins of the ancient city buried by an explosion of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, “witness a great culture, of which they also reveal fearful questions,” he said. “The Marian City is born from the core of these questions, proposing the Risen Christ as their answer.”

He said he was convinced that by proclaiming a Year of the Rosary he had prompted a significant reawakening of the prayer. That in turn should encourage Christians to put their faith into action in their own communities, he said.

John Paul responded to the crowd's love with spontaneous words before the final blessing. “Thank you, thank you, Pompeii…. Thank you for your welcoming and the youth's enthusiasm. Pray for me at this shrine now and always.”

The papal helicopter that had brought the Pope from the Vatican hours earlier left Pompeii at 1 p.m. amid cheers of well-wishers and signs reading: “John Paul II, the champion of the world,” and “Congratulations for your 25th anniversary.” There was also a passionately-inscribed Neapolitan poster that read: “Papa, tu sei una cosa grande” (Pope, you are a great thing).

The Holy Father himself called his Pompeii pilgrimage “the crown of the Year of the Rosary.”

Legionary Father Alfonso Aguilar teaches philosophy in Rome.

CNS contributed to this article