Totus Tuus: Mary, Shaper of Saints

 

John Paul II: Your Suffering Elevates the World

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

Pope St. John Paul Quotes: July 27, 2017

What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ, and that we love him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And without the love of Jesus, everything else is useless.

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There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us.

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Christ himself carried a burden, and his burden - the cross - was made heavier by the sins of us all. But Christ did not avoid the cross; he accepted it and carried it willingly. Moreover, he now stands beside those weighed down by trials and persecutions, remaining beside them to the end. It is for all people and with all people that he carries the cross to Calvary, and it is there that for all of us he is nailed to his cross. He dies the death of a criminal, the most humiliating death known to the world at that time. That is why to those in our own century who carry terrible burdens he is able to say: "Come tome! I am your Brother in suffering. There is no humiliation or bitterness which I do not know!"

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Jesus Christ has taken the lead on the way of the cross. He has suffered first. He does not drive us toward suffering but shares it with us, wanting us to have life and to have it in abundance. 

~Pope St. John Paul the Great

Pope John Paul II: Suffering and Healing, A Double Lesson

The Gospel often shows Jesus in the act of bending over sick people, to comfort them and also, not infrequently, to cure them. 

The Redeemer himself did not escape suffering, and he taught that pain has a value in the work of salvation, yet "he went about doing good and healing all." A double lesson can be seen in this behavior: that human pain has a precise rose to play in God's plan, and that, nevertheless, it moves the heart of Jesus to compassion,for he knows well how profoundly suffering can upset frail humanity and how severely it can test it. Thus he never withholds his understanding and comfort from the sick person who turns trustingly to him.

It is very important, in fact crucial, to accept suffering with Jesus, like Jesus, and for his love, because this conforms in a special way with him and his mission. In this regard St. Maximus the Confessor teaches that God, in his inscrutable plan of love, allows suffering to strike mankind not only as a punishment but as a medicine.

The plea to be cured is still legitimate, because health, too, is a great gift of God, thanks to which we may render valuable services to our neighbor. No divine gift, in fact, is ever bestowed for our exclusive personal advantage but "so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

- Blessed Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II: God's Love for Us Is Freely Given and Unearned

God's love for us is freely given and unearned, surpassing all we could ever hope for or imagine. He does not love us because we have merited it or are worthy of it. God loves us, rather, because he is true to his own nature. As Saint John puts it, "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him" (1Jn 4:16).

- Blessed Pope John Paul II