The Significance of Suffering and the Meaning of Life

Palm Sunday


Pontiff's suffering compared in Holy Week to that of Christ

(Excerpt)

VATICAN CITY -- A drawn-looking Pope John Paul II, unable to preside over Palm Sunday Mass for the first time in his 26-year papacy, waved an olive branch from his apartment window to tens of thousands of pilgrims who filled St. Peter's Square.

Later the pope heard the cardinal standing in for him compare his suffering with that of Christ.

The crowd cheered as John Paul appeared at his third-floor window and saluted pilgrims who jammed the sun-drenched square for the ceremony ushering in Holy Week.

He appeared for no more than a minute, and did not speak, before the white curtains at his window were drawn closed. Vatican television did not zoom in on John Paul as it has in his past window appearances at the Vatican and earlier at the Rome hospital that treated him for a breathing crisis.

CNN's Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci said that the pope looked uncomfortable and banged a glass lectern with his fist before being led away.

"With great joy I salute you," the pope said earlier in remarks read by an archbishop that included a special welcome for young people.

CNN's Vinci said that Vatican official Cardinal Camillo Ruini led the service in John Paul's place. The pope watched the service from his apostolic palace, Vinci said.

The Mass included a special prayer for the 84-year-old pontiff, calling him "our beloved father" and asking that he continue in his "service up to the gift of life."

A long line of cardinals, bishops and priests holding olive branches and palm fronds walked into the square in procession at the start of the Mass.

The brief, poignant appearance brought tears to the eyes of some people in the crowd of tens of thousands below, Vinci said.

"I almost had a heart attack. Seeing him at the window so overwhelming," Giuseppe Velas, from Sardinia, told Reuters. "I hope he will guide the Church for a long time."

During the service, the pope's window was kept open -- curtains wafting in the warm breeze and a palm branch on the windowsill -- as a sign of his participation in the event which recalls Christ's entry into Jerusalem five days before his crucifixion.

In his sermon, Ruini said the cross of Christ always offered new symbolism to the faithful and this year that symbol in suffering was the pope himself.

"The cross of Christ does not depress or weaken. On the contrary, it spouts new energy, which is reflected in the saints that have made the history of the Church fruitful, and which today is reflected with particular clarity in the fatigue on the face of the Holy Father," Ruini said.

Ruini said considering suffering "useless and harmful" was wrong. "This is the error which blocks us understanding not only the significance of suffering but even the meaning of life," he said.

...During the Mass, celebrated under clear skies, a prayer was said for the health of the pope, who left Rome's Gemelli hospital a week ago after two stints there totaling 28 days.

"We pray for our beloved father, Pope John Paul II, may the Holy Spirit enlighten and sustain him so that his witness of fidelity to Christ may be an example to all the young people of the world..." the prayer, read in Portuguese, said.

The pope, who has a tube in his throat to help him breathe, has delegated nearly all Holy Week services to senior cardinals.

Holy Week, which ends on Easter Sunday, is the busiest and most important period in the Church's liturgical calendar.
____________________________________
The Holy Father has a tube in his throat to help him breathe.

Is this "life support"?

Should the Pope be starved to death because he needs this assistance in breathing?

Is his life less precious now that he has these physical difficulties?

I can't help but be reminded of Terri Schiavo and the suffering she has endured.

Christ is never closer to the faithful than when they must carry their crosses. Suffering has meaning. As Ruini suggests, that symbol in suffering is the Pope himself. I would suggest that Terri is another symbol of Christ's suffering.

"The cross of Christ does not depress or weaken."