Newsweek on the Pope's 'Precious' Suffering

Excellent article on the meaning of the Pope's suffering and recent illnesses and how he's becoming a potent symbol for his message: that life is sacred, no matter how painful.....In a written message, the pope told the world's sick, "Your suffering is never useless ... it's a precious thing."

Like most young Catholics, Pope John Paul is all I know. I had the honour of meeting him 5 years ago and receiving his blessing - he touched my cheek and was possibly the most powerful personal encounter of my life. He was a frail man then but his strength of spirit and the light of his intellect shone through.
The last few days has been conflicting for me - part of me wants him to pass peacefully when God calls him but another part of me wants him to live forever, continuing to show to "The spectacle of his condition crystallizes his ferocious attachment to life—the most central, coherent and consistent teaching of his papacy—whether that life is threatened in the womb by abortion, or in old age by euthanasia."

Newsweek ends with this line "Yet the pope's absence had a power of its own. It contained questions: about life, about suffering, about the nature of God"