VATICAN - The Pope’s Wednesday Audience teaching: “To a simply human vision, pain and sickness may appear to be absurd realities: but if we let ourselves be illuminated by the light of the Gospel we are able to grasp their profound salvific significance”.

Vatican City (Fides Service) - Pope John Paul II dedicated his teaching during the Wednesday Audience on 11 February to the mystery of the sick and the suffering. In fact it was the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and for the Church the World Day of the Sick. “World Day for the Sick is a powerful call to realise the important presence in the Christian community of the suffering and to give ever greater value to their precious contribution. To a simply human vision pain and sickness may appear to be absurd realities: but if we let ourselves be illuminated by the light of the Gospel we are able to grasp their profound salvific significance.”
Making a visit in spirit to the small town of Lourdes chosen to host the 12th Day of the Sick to mark the 150th anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Pope voiced affection and spiritual closeness to all “experience the weight of suffering in body or spirit” and he emphasised: “I would recall that human life is always a gift of God, even when marked by physical suffering of all kinds; it is a "gift" to valorise for the Church and the world.” He then addressed words of appreciation to those who assist the sick, “striving to alleviate their suffering and, as far as possible, free them of their infirmity thanks to the progress in the art of medicine”. He underlined that “It is a great act of love to care for the suffering!” Lastly he entrusted all sick, elderly and lonely people to the Immaculate Mary Our Lady of Lourdes.
(S.L.) (Fides Service 12/2/2004 - lines 19; words 262)