Max Pearson

All his writing reflected more the

The noise, the pressure, the craziness, the sweat, the burn, everything that is going on in the kitchen.

But first, popes have been making and shaping history for millennia.

But in the last century, it was Pope John Paul II who set a very high standard in terms of his visibility and connection with the world's more than one billion Roman Catholics.

Jendale takes us back to the 22nd of November 1986, when Pope John Paul visited New Zealand as part of a whirlwind six-nation tour.

One of those carefully preparing for this historic event, as reported by Radio New Zealand, is Michael Jarka.

Michael is half Polish and is part of a dance group who want to give the Polish-born pontiff a little taste of home.

They work hard in the months before to get everything perfect.

They made wooden crosses which had a message of welcome to the Pope.

And we all helped out, sort of like on a production line, making those things and that, sewing Polish flags and getting Vatican flags and things and making the costumes and just going to practices every Sunday afternoon.

I remember going to those.

Great fun.

The women's costumes, basically they were a white blouse with thin red ribbons and they wore a black bodice that was very heavily embroidered with sequins and...

diamantes and things like that my costume was what they called a Krakowian costume the hat was like a university cap it was red black band and it had peacock feathers which stood out and a blue jacket was a sleeveless jacket that sort of went down to about your knee length patterns of like roosters and various other traditional Polish figures and that then the trousers were striped and then you wore either socks or boots below that it was very very colourful and you just felt so proud being in that costume

The day arrives that Michael has been waiting for, and despite it turning wet and windy later in the tour at Wellington and Christchurch, the sun shines down in Auckland.

So it was a bit of cloud, I know, when we were processing down to the domain from where we'd parked the cars and everything, it was a bit cloudy and that, but...

Yeah, the cloud had sort of rolled away and during the mass it was a really beautiful warm day.

But it wasn't hot so as to be uncomfortable, which was really nice.

But it was just a beautiful sunny Auckland day.

Thousands of people turn out at the Domain.