Tearful crowds packed to overflowing the massive, stadium-style Basilica of Guadalupe, where the pope canonized Indian saint Juan Diego in 2002, in a sad goodbye timed to coincide with John Paul II's official funeral in Rome.

Those who couldn't fit inside the church spilled out into the massive, concrete plaza outside, illuminated in the dead of night by thousands of votive candles and the spotlights of hovering news helicopters.

Church officials began the Mass by forming a solemn procession to the altar of the basilica, carrying articles of clothing the pope wore when he was here and a chair he sat in while addressing a crowd of more than 100,000 people at Mexico City's Azteca Stadium in January 1999.

Mexico's largest television network, Televisa, carried the early-morning Mass live, during which mourners held pictures of John Paul close to their hearts and cried openly.

Prior to the Mass, dozens of people clutching flowers and yellow and white balloons followed the popemobile in its last journey from the residence of the papal nuncio in southeast Mexico City, north to the basilica.

Ringed by police cars and motorcycles, the boxy white vehicle, about the size of a small mobile home, was fitted with large pictures of a smiling John Paul II on each side.

Its interior lights were on and those jockeying to catch a glimpse saw a framed picture of the pope on a chair shrouded in a white sheet and surrounded by candles and flowers.

Some sang and others cried as the popemobile passed, while others followed the vehicle on bicycles or jogged alongside for several city blocks.

John Paul, who died Saturday at the age of 84, is especially revered in Mexico. He chose Mexico for his first foreign trip in 1979 and returned four times to the predominantly Catholic country, which he labeled "ever faithful."