List of illustrations and picture credits -- Maps -- Preface -- Part One : A Slav troubadour in troubled times (1920-46) : Like death, beyond comprehension -- I become a motherless only child -- When the ship is sinking, what is private? -- Vita Cracoviensis -- The year of three plays -- Equilibrium which love learns through anger -- The actor carries the problem -- Hidden forces produce the strongest actions -- The black hood went over his head -- Part Two : The hidden breath of the spirit will unify all (1946-78) : Living in little more than a hut -- My train to Krakow isn't until after midnight -- Sexual drive is a gift from God -- The tangle of bushes and shoots -- Was this goodbye to the inner man? -- Death, the place of greatest concentration -- Part Three : The Pope of this distracted globe (1978-90) : Peter, you are the floor -- He's cleaned up his plate -- Other points of the compass -- Opening the ways of the Spirit -- Be sober, be watchful -- Siege or Sanctuary? -- The ravelled sleeve of Christianity -- What do they think I said next? -- Now for the Polish endgame -- Part Four : The nearer we are to the mountain, the smaller we are (1990-2005) : Was he losing the plot? -- The connection with suffering -- Still seeking to heal -- The outward husk of mortality -- Final lighting of the lamp -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Chronology -- Documents of John Paul II -- Select bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index.