"He was a gift, a gift from God to the world, to the Church, to Orchard Lake and to me – and now we've given that gift back to God," said Fr. Walter Ziemba, who did the English translation of "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way," published last September.

Fr. Walter Ziemba presents Pope John Paul II with a privately published copy of his reflections on his papacy in January 2004. The book is to be published by Paulist Press later this year.

Fr. Ziemba had known the pope since the late 1960s, and in 1969 traveled with the then-archbishop of Krakow, Poland, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, on a 17-day trip to 16 cities in the United States and Canada.

If not the first person to recognized Cardinal Wojtyla as a potential future pope, Fr. Ziemba was at least one of the early ones. He recalls turning to a colleague as they left their first meeting with him in 1968, and remarking, "This man is papabile," which is to say capable of becoming pope.

As rector of SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake and president of  St. Mary's College, Fr. Ziemba was among the key Polish-American clerics who briefed the future pope on the pastoral needs of Polonia – the Polish diaspora in North America.

He also hosted Cardinal Wojtyla on two visits to Orchard Lake.

"As a great person and as the pope and head of the Church, he still allowed himself to become a friend and a person with whom you could have personal and intimate contact. He always made you feel as if, at that moment, you were the only person in the world who counted for him," Fr. Ziemba recalls.

Besides translating the pope's book into English, Fr. Ziemba also had a collection of his own reflections on John Paul II's papacy privately published and presented a copy to the late pope in January 2004.