Tens of thousands of people from around the world flocked to a candlelight service at the Vatican on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul and pray that he be made a saint soon.

They came from the late Pope?s native Poland, the United States, Asia and Italy to recite the rosary and listen to Pope Benedict speak at about 9:37 p.m. (19:37 GMT), the time at which John Paul died a year ago.

?He continues to be present in our minds and in our hearts,? Pope Benedict, wearing a red cape over his white cassock, told the crowd from his window overlooking St Peter?s Square on a warm Rome evening.

?He continues to communicate his love for God and his love for man,? said Benedict, who said the late Pope had taught the world the value of life even in its final stages.

He had confronted his illness ?with courage and made us all more aware of human pain ... he gave human suffering dignity and worth, showing that man is not valued for his efficiency, for what he looks like, but for himself because he was created and loved by God,? Benedict said.

A sea of Polish flags filled the square as dusk settled and the some of the late Pope?s countrymen held up a huge banner from his hometown of Wadowice in southern Poland. Benedict read part of his address in Polish for those watching on television in the late Pope?s homeland.

Dozens of banners bore the name of Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the union that John Paul supported in the early 1980s and whose rise led to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.

<B>?Thank you John Paul?

Young people read excerpts from the late Pope?s writings, including some of his poetry, and listened to spiritual songs as they exchanged personal memories of the late pontiff.

?We are here to give tribute. It is a must for us to be here because being here in St Peter?s Square is us giving him our thanksgiving for all the wonderful things he did,? said Richard Ricafente, a man in his 20s from the Philippines.

Nuns in black habits and Franciscan monks in brown robes joined young people in jeans to hold up candles and picture of the late Pope. During the day, many had waited together for hours to visit John Paul?s tomb in St Peter?s Basilica.

?I think he was a holy Pope and I think the process for sainthood should be speeded up,? said Giuseppe Decore, an Italian lawyer.

Many said they would be praying that the late Pope could be made a saint soon. Several in the evening crowd held up a banner reading ?Santo Subito?(?Make him a saint now?), a repeat of banners held aloft at his funeral a year ago.

?I don?t have the words to express my feelings. He was not only our father but a father to the whole world,? said Hanna Ulatowska, a 29-year-old flower shop owner who came from Warsaw.

The feeling was the same at the Lagiewniki shrine near Krakow, where thousands of Poles, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, attended a memorial mass said by the late Pope?s private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz.

?I pray every day so that John Paul II is made saint. He is a man that changed Poland, changed me, changed the whole world. He was already a saint in his lifetime,? said Katarzyna Malec, a pensioner from Krakow.

Last May, Pope Benedict put his predecessor on the fast track to sainthood by dispensing with Church rules that normally impose a five-year waiting period after a candidate?s death before the procedure that leads to sainthood can even start.

Church officials are investigating the healing of a French nun whose symptoms of Parkinson?s disease disappeared after she prayed to the Pope. This may be the miracle the Church would need to beatify the Pope, the last step before sainthood.