The Greatest Days

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope John Paul II was responding to treatment with antibiotics and his condition appeared to have stabilized after he suddenly developed a high fever brought on by a urinary tract infection, Vatican radio reported early Friday.
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Marc A. Thiessen suggests that these days, when the Pope is at his weakest physically, may actually be the greatest of his papacy.

"The principal task of the pope is not the effective management of the Church bureaucracy — it is to serve as an effective witness for Christ in the world. John Paul does this more eloquently today, through his silent suffering, than he ever did with words. It does not really matter if he can use his voice intelligibly — or at all. By carrying on, despite his afflictions, he stands as a living rebuke to our utilitarian culture — and a living witness to the value of every life, especially the elderly and infirm...

We need his example, which affirms the continuing value of every human person who feels isolated by illness and abandoned by a society. And we need to be reminded that we all have responsibilities to the weakest among us — to help them live in dignity, and to value the gift of their presence, whatever their condition, at every stage of their lives.

In that encyclical over a decade ago, the Holy Father said this about the suffering of others: "When the body is gravely ill, totally incapacitated, and the person is almost incapable of living and acting, all the more do interior maturity and spiritual greatness become evident, constituting a touching lesson to those who are healthy and normal." Today, as his own body grows increasingly incapacitated, and as he becomes less capable of living and acting, it is John Paul's spiritual greatness that is becoming all the more evident — and he is teaching the world anew.

How blessed we are to have such a teacher in our midst; to receive the precious gift of his suffering; and to be living witnesses to what may one day be considered the greatest days of the greatest papacy in history. John Paul was once asked why he does not retire, and is said to have given this reply: "Because Christ did not come down from the Cross." The Lord will take him from us when He is ready. 'Til then, give us this silent pope."