It's certainly a time for huge crowds. The memory of the Royal Wedding is still only too fresh, and now we're off again, this time to Rome:
The ceremony to beatify the late Pope, John Paul II, has begun in Rome in front of hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims.
Among the many heads of state dignifying the occasion with their presence….Robert Mugabe:
A Vatican spokesman said Mr Mugabe had not been personally invited but as the head of a state with which the Vatican has relations he was entitled to attend.
In all, 22 world leaders will be in Rome to celebrate the beatification of the Polish-born Pope.
A Vatican spokesman said 87 international delegations had so far indicated they would be attending Sunday's solemn ceremony in St Peter's Square.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims – including up to a quarter of a million from Poland alone – are expected to cram the square.
On Friday, John Paul II – who is buried in three coffins – was exhumed from his tomb in the Vatican Grottoes.
Three coffins? Was there something about the manner of his death that we weren't told? But apparently (as I learn from this incredibly detailed and tedious Wiki entry on JP2's funeral, where you can read all about the Rite of Papal Death, the Vestments, Mass of Repose, Rite of Visitation, Requiem Mass – including the Processional, Liturgy of the Word, Homily, Liturgy of the Eucharist, Commendation - the Rite of Internment, Dignitaries, and the Novemdiales) the three coffins are in fact nested, like a Russian doll.
Beatification, or declaring a person "blessed", is the necessary prelude to full sainthood.
For this to happen, the Vatican must declare the person to have performed a miracle.
In John Paul's case, a 49-year-old French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, said she and her fellow nuns prayed for the intercession of the pope after his death to cure her from Parkinson's Disease.
Her sudden cure had no logical medical explanation and she later resumed her work as a maternity nurse, the Vatican says.
There have been reports that Sister Marie has fallen ill again since her recovery and that her diagnosis with Parkinson's Disease may have been incorrect.
Surely not!
If the late Pope is declared to have performed another miracle he will be eligible for canonisation as a saint.
Blood taken from Pope John Paul II before he died is to go on display at his beatification on Sunday.
One of four small vials of blood removed from John Paul during his final days will be used, the Vatican said in a statement….
After the death of John Paul, two of the vials of blood were given to the late pope's private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, now archbishop of Krakow, Poland.
The other two – one of which will be used for Sunday's beatification – were left in the care of nuns at the Vatican's Bambin Gesu hospital.
The vial will be placed in a "precious reliquary" prepared specially for the occasion by the Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations.
After being extracted, the blood was mixed with an anti-coagulant in the container to ensure it remained liquid.
"The blood and hair, these are from of the pope's body, so these are relics of the first degree," Cardinal Dziwisz told AFP.
There – now don't you feel better about our own rather innocuous bit of pageantry?
Mick Hartley 
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