(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis praised members of the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers for their support to the sick, the disabled and the elderly. His remarks came in an address to participants attending the Council’s plenary meeting currently underway in the Vatican.Pope Francis told the participants that when we suffer we are never alone because God in his merciful love for us embraces even the most inhuman situations in which the image of the Creator present in every person appears blackened or disfigured. That was what it was like, he said, for Jesus during his Passion who took on every human suffering, every anguish, out of his love for us.
The Pope said Jesus’s Passion is the greatest school for whoever would like to dedicate their lives to caring for their sick and suffering brothers and sisters. Experiencing the sharing of this fraternal love for the suffering opens us to the true beauty of human life including its fragility.
The Pope reiterated that when caring for life, we must recognize the dignity and value of every single human being, from conception until death. Mary, he continued, welcomed life on behalf of us all and for the advantage of all and has very close personal links with the Gospel of Life.
Pope Francis concluded his address by urging the participants to see the figure of Christ present in the poor, the suffering, the unwanted children, in people with physical and psychic disabilities and in the elderly.
Text from Vatican Radio website
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