Favourite photos - no. 3: Pope John Paul II

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This is a photo from a French magazine that I cut out and put onto a piece of card during my first year of training to be a Brother (Noviciate) back in 1990. It has either been a bookmark in my breviary or stuck on my wall ever since. I think it is a tremendous picture for many reasons:
- the natural, genuine warmth and affection in the gesture of embrace
- the playful smile
- the thoughts that must have been going through the minds of these 2 children, being embraced by the Pope, their faces buried in his chest
- this is how I would imagine Jesus to be with children
- and the journalist/sound engineer in the background looking on... what was going through his mind?

- and I suppose also the thought (fuelled by jealousy no doubt) that I would have loved to be one of those children, and indeed still would! :-)

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