The lights still glowed in Karol Wojtyla's apartment when Donald Wuerl, bishop of Pittsburgh, led a trio of priests into St. Peter's Square to pray before the bones of the first pope, and just below the residence of his 263rd successor.

		An Apostle's journey This is one in a series of columns looking at how the life and death of John Paul II has touched his American congregation. Previous column His visit to Polish Hill cherished but distant, April 4, 2005

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth ...

Wuerl has this custom.

"When I'm here with priests, we like to end the day by saying the Apostles' Creed while facing St. Peter," he told a reporter who was surprised to find his bishop prowling the Roman night. It was January 2004. Wuerl had brought a delegation to a papal concert. Others were now in hotel lobbies, taverns, restaurants or bed.

He invited the interloper to join the prayer. They stood there, Wuerl, his secretary the Rev. Robert Grecco, the Rev. Ron Lengwin, and the Rev. Dennis Yurochko, saying the prayer that connects the bones of the past to the flesh of the present.

... and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried ...

The Nicene Creed has similar words. But the creed adopted by the Council of Nicea in 325 bordered on the legalistic. The council was organized by Emperor Constantine and the ensuing creed was essentially a code of Christian beliefs to counter a heresy of the time that questioned Christ's divinity.

The Apostles' Creed, unpretentious, almost conversational in its declaration, emerged from the shadows of church history with no date affixed to it. Legend holds that the apostles themselves wrote the creed 10 days after Christ's ascension into heaven. Religious historians date it anywhere from the second to the sixth centuries.

The Nicene Creed says what Catholics believe. The Apostles' Creed, as Grecco explained it, "is something the church reminds us of constantly: who we are."

He descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead ...

Grecco understands these words, startling as they sound. Hell has its many meanings. On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a short walk from the square, I had seen Michelangelo's vision of hell: a brown and orange pit into which the damned fall from clouds, pummeled loose from the sky by angels denying them heaven. The creed's meaning is older still.

"That really means he descended to the abode of the dead," Grecco said. "The idea was that Adam and Eve and all of the patriarchs were there awaiting redemption." Some Byzantine beliefs have Jesus escorting Adam and Eve to redemption. Catholics believe that souls go straight to heaven and the bodies, like the one laid out on a slab of marble at the Vatican this week, rise to rejoin their souls on Judgment Day.

Grecco was cognizant that night of the juxtaposition of St. Peter and John Paul, mere yards and centuries distant from each other as a bishop and his priests said the prayer that binds them all.

"When you recite that creed, you know you're in union with him," Grecco said yesterday. The square was empty that night. In less than 15 months it would fill to bursting, first with people awaiting the pope's death; then with people trying to understand it.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

With those last words of the creed, the quartet of priests went on their way to bed. The reporter stayed behind, wondering why a prayer he'd said from the age of 6, which he hadn't said in recent memory, suddenly held him with such force. He stayed behind a while, looked at the lights in the upstairs apartment to his right, watched them go out.

Four priests from Pittsburgh put the pope to bed that night.

By all accounts, "amen" was the final word uttered by John Paul. It is the word that closes every prayer. John Paul was 84 years old. Grecco is exactly half his age. Grecco was just beginning his priesthood when he met the pope, who greeted him with the familiarity for which he was known. He gave Grecco a rosary, the customary gift of a pope to his visitors. As the pope's own priesthood ended with death, Grecco thought back on many things, including that night in St. Peter's Square.

"It was Sunday afternoon, and I was watching television about the pope's death," Grecco said. "They mentioned he had made recordings." Grecco remembered -- the first pope of the Information Age had recorded himself praying the rosary.

"I knew exactly where it was. It was in the attic with my collection of classical music." He dug through it and found the recording, plugged it into a portable player and, wearing headphones and carrying a rosary, went to the chapel at the cathedral rectory and prayed the rosary. It begins with these words:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth ...