VATICAN - At the Angelus Benedict XVI recalls the connection between Lourdes and human suffering: “It is necessary to support development of palliative treatment and offer integral assistance to give terminally ill people the human support and spiritual accompaniment they need.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In his reflections before the midday Angelus prayer on Sunday 11th February Pope Benedict XVI recalled the feast day to commemorate the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Saint Bernadette on the 11th February 1858 in a cave at Massabielle, near Lourdes, and the celebration of this recurrence of the World Day for the Sick. The Holy Father said because of those apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Lourdes became “a centre of pilgrimage and intense Marian spirituality for the whole world” where “for almost 150 years the Blessed Virgin’s call for prayer and penance has resounded”. At Lourdes “numerous sick people listen to Most Holy Mary and receive encouragement and learn to accept their sufferings and offer them for the salvation of the world, united with the sufferings of Christ on the cross.”
“Precisely because of the connection between Lourdes and human suffering, the Pope said, fifteen years ago, our beloved John Paul II wished for the Church to make the annual Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Day dedicated to sick people all over the world. This year the main celebration is taking place in Seoul, capital of South Korea, where I sent as my representative Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council or Health Pastoral”. The Pope sent special greetings to those gathered in a Seoul and to healthcare workers and sick people all over the world especially those whose are most serious and most painful: “It is necessary to support development of palliative treatment and offer integral assistance to give terminally ill people the human support and spiritual accompaniment they need.”
The Pope recalled that in the afternoon he would go to St Peter’s to address sick people and healthcare workers, to relive the spiritual atmosphere of Lourdes and he entrusted all those in the world in the world to the care of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 12/2/2007; righe 24, parole 341)