To the Patients of the Einsiedeln Regional Hospital (16 June 1984)

On Saturday, 16 June 1984, the Holy Father visited the patients in the Einsiedeln Regional Hospital. In speaking to them the Pope reminded them of Christ''s sufferings, to learn from the mystery of the Cross. “For believers, illness and suffering are not so much a tragic fate that they have to endure passively, but rather a task that enables them to live out their Christian calling in a special way.”

Dear brothers and sisters!

1. God's goodness has arranged that my pilgrimage through your beloved homeland has brought me to your immediate vicinity. I would therefore like to greet you and all those who look after you with love here in this regional hospital with my heartfelt greeting through my brief visit. I do this with the greeting of peace from the risen Lord: "Peace be with you!" ( John 20:21) and I also address this greeting to all the sick in your country.

Like every servant of the Gospel, the joyful message of Christ's redeeming suffering, I come to you as a brother. I do not bring you a new message, but rather a tried and tested one that can transform and renew life, illness and even the need to die. The Gospel and the Christian faith, in which I am permitted to strengthen you today on Christ's behalf, are good news, especially for you in the bitter experience of human frailty and distress. Although they do not ease external pain, they make it more bearable by opening up a path to its deeper meaning and understanding.

2. In the eyes of the world, suffering, illness and dying are terrible, sterile and destructive things. Especially when children have to suffer, when people who are not at fault for their illness - and that is probably the majority - when innocent people are struck by accidents, disabilities or incurable illnesses, we are faced with a mystery that, to be honest, cannot be solved in purely human terms. It can make us hard, it can embitter us, both those directly affected and those who stand by powerlessly, unable to help and suffering from their own helplessness.

Here in this house and in this country there will be people who ask: Why? Why me? Why now? Why my wife, my father, my sister, my friend? These questions are all too understandable. But today I would like to draw your attention to another question that can lead you further. It is a question that draws out the deadly sting of the senseless destructiveness and hostility to life that can be found in suffering and illness. It is not just the question of "why", but of "what for". Ultimately, no one on earth can answer the "why". The question, however, of "why" this difficult task has been imposed on me can open up new horizons for us. When Jesus was asked whether the man born blind himself or his parents had sinned, he gave a surprising answer: "Neither he nor his parents . . . but the work of God should be made manifest in him" ( John 9:3).

In this context, add to the question "Why?" another important word that gives it the decisive direction: "Why, Lord?" This is no longer a question that is meaningless, but is addressed to someone who himself suffered and fought to the point of shedding blood, who "learned obedience with loud cries and tears," as the Letter to the Hebrews says ( Heb 5:7-8). He understands you and knows how you feel. He himself first asked that the bitter cup pass from him ( Matt 26:39). But he was so one with the will of the Father that he was finally able to say a complete and free yes. From him you can learn to make suffering fruitful and meaningful for the healing of the world. With him, your illness and suffering can make you more human and even happier and freer. Many have learned from him and have thereby become a source of comfort for others. Therefore, you too should go to the school of his redeeming suffering and often repeat the request that St. Catherine of Siena repeatedly addressed to Christ in her many sufferings: "Lord, tell me the truth about your cross, I want to listen to you."

3. As Christians, we do not encounter in illness a disastrous or even senseless human fate, but ultimately the mystery of Christ's cross and resurrection. In pain and suffering, man shares the fate of creation, which - according to St. Paul - was "subjected to futility" through sin, which "groans in the pains of childbirth to this day," but which is also already animated by the hope of being "set free from perdition and obtaining the freedom and glory of the children of God" ( Rom 8:20).

For believers, illness and suffering are not so much a tragic fate that they have to endure passively, but rather a task that enables them to live out their Christian calling in a special way. They are God's call to mankind: a call to fellow human beings to support those who are suffering in a brotherly manner and to help with all the means of medical art; a call to the sick not to resign themselves to their suffering or to rebel bitterly, but to see in it the opportunity to follow Christ more closely. Our faith alone can give us the courage and strength to do this. Through faithful acceptance, all human suffering can become a personal participation in the redeeming sacrificial and atoning suffering of Christ. Christ himself thereby continues his own passion in the suffering person. Therefore, all the help and love that we show to them is ultimately shown to Christ. “I was sick and you visited me,” says Christ, and continues: “Truly I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” ( Matthew 25:36, 40).

Through the inner community of suffering with Christ, human suffering itself receives a liberating and transforming power and at the same time also a share in the Easter hope of the future resurrection. In the Christian Easter faith we can be convinced with St. Paul that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" ( Rom 8:18).

Dear brothers and sisters! This is the blissful Good News of Christ and our faith, in which I would like to strengthen you, the sick and those who help with the sick, nurses and doctors, through my brief visit to your hospital. I impart my Apostolic Blessing to you and to all the sick in Switzerland from the bottom of my heart, and I particularly commend my pastoral trip to your country to your prayers. Because the Pope relies above all on the prayers and sacrifices of the sick. - May Almighty God bless, protect and strengthen you: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! Amen.

© Copyright 1984 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana