Thousands of faithful had gathered to pray aloud and keep vigil in St Peter’s Square below the apartment before Pope John Paul’s death. Pope’s personal secretary and now Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz said that the pope heard the crowd praying for him.

According to the Vatican account, the pope uttered his final words at 3.30 pm. “A little before 7 pm, he went into a coma,” it said. “According to a Polish tradition, a small, lit candle illuminated the twilight of the room, where the pope was expiring,” the account said.

Shortly after John Paul’s death, the Vatican press office announced the time of death as 9.37 pm. The account is particularly elaborate about John Paul’s turn for the worse on the morning of March 31 at his private chapel when he was “hit by a shaking chill, followed by a sharp rise in temperature” to about 103. “Then very grave septic shock set in, with cardio-circulatory collapse, due to a diagnosed infection of the urinary tract,” the account said.

The Vatican account describes the pontiff as experiencing participation in what was going on around him. John Paul’s eyes were closed during a Mass that was being celebrated near his bed in the late afternoon of March 31.

“At the moment of consecration, he weakly raised his right hand two times, that is, on the raising up of the bread and wine. He made a gesture indicating he was trying to strike his chest during the recitation” of the Lamb of God prayer, the Vatican said. — Beliefnet.com concluded