John Paul II: Your Suffering Elevates the World
I call on you to entrust your anguish to God the Father and to Christ, through Mary; to ask of Him - more than resignation, and even more than courage for your struggle - the grace of love and hope. Look at the Cross of Christ with faith: although it is the instrument of immense suffering, it is above all the sign of immense love, and the open door to Resurrection, which is the ultimate response of the God of love to His chosen Son.
May you offer this handicap of yours together with Christ, and enter into redemption: for your salvation, for the progress of the whole Church, for the graces of conversion that our world needs! Remain faithful to prayer. Try to remain open to others, without turning in on yourselves. Others have a lot to gain from your experience as sick people and as believers. Often, your ordeal has enabled you to acquire an outlook on existence and what is truly valuable, and gain a new degree of patience, of courage, of solidarity, of serenity at the prospect of death - in contrast with the anxiety of those around you - and a mysterious union with God. To all this you can bear witness, making manifest the promise of Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Even in the silence of prayer, and confined to your bed, you are in communion with the whole world, in order to take part in redemption: your prayer and your offering elevate the world.
~ Pope St. John Paul II
Belgium
May 21, 1985
