To the people of Cremona

Suffering enables us to grow in hope

and spiritual maturity

21 June 1992

At Cremona's Ospedale Maggiore

Mr. Mayor,

Distinguished Authorities,

Dear Sick People and Health-care Workers,

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the city of Cremona,

1.I offer my deferential, cordial greeting to all. I am very grateful to Mr. Noci for the

courteous address in which he expressed to me the greeting of the Italian Government. I also thank the Mayor for the kind words of welcome he just expressed in the name of the community, and the administrator of the local social health-care unit for those he expressed in the name of the health-care field. I also thank the patient who so warmly expressed the deepest sentiments of you all, dear brothers and sisters being cared for in this Ospedale Maggiore.

With loving sensitivity your Pastor, dear Bishop Enrico Assi, wanted me to begin my pastoral visit to the city of Cremona in this place of suffering and hope. From it I affectionately greet hard-working, noble Cremona: the city at the center of the luxuriant, fertile Po valley; a city offering the observer monuments and works of art which unmistakably mirror your ancestors' belief as well as their genius.

In the many centuries of its history, Cremona has often had in the forefront especially distinguished figures of Church life. It can boast of having as its patron saint a layman, St. Homobonus, who was able to make his work not only a source of profit, but the effective means for an original, personal charity, attentive to the poor and suffering, nourished at the wellsprings which are Penance and the Eucharist.

Cremona is also associated with the name of my illustrious predecessor, Niccolò Sfondrati who, in the footsteps of his fraternal friend, St. Charles Borromeo, incarnated the ideal of the Tridentine Bishop, assiduously visiting - four times - the parishes of his Diocese, founding the diocesan seminary (1566), one of the first in Italy, appreciating and supporting the new forms of priestly and religious spirituality of his age.

As Pope Gregory XIV, in the rather brief period of his pontificate - not even a year - he was able to understand and interpret the profound anxiety for reform of the Church, sharing and supporting the work of saints, such as Alexander Sàuli, Camillus de Lellis, Philip Neri. One of the constant concerns of his ministry was precisely the sick.

2.Following his example, I have come among you, dear patients, to bring you the comfort of a word of support and encouragement. The Church as always seen the service of the sick as "an integral part of her mission" (Salvifici Doloris, n. 30). Today, however, she has grown in a clearer awareness of the active role of the sick, who are not only the recipients of pastoral ministry, but are also called to assume the task of being responsibly involved in the work of evangelization and salvation (cf. Christifideles Laici, n. 54). The hospital is certainly a privileged place in which they can fulfill this special human and spiritual mission. Is it not for them, perhaps, that the whole hospital structure is constituted and organized? With their suffering, their problems, anxieties and hopes, they must be the point of reference for every concrete choice in the organization of health care. When other criteria receive de facto affirmation and prevail, the health-care system inevitably experiences crisis, and the malaise registered in it ends up having repercussions on the whole of society.

Hospitals remind us to respect the human person

Thus the hospital is one of the truest mirrors of society, the most important place for understanding the reality and person of today.

3.Therefore, the fact that my first meeting with the urban life of Cremona occurs in this place has an almost symbolic meaning. For your city, too, the hospital is the point where the potential and the contradictions proper to human social life converge. It has exceptional technological capability, but perhaps also reveals a certain insensitivity to deep, authentic relations, and often ends up showing indifference to the values of the spirit. Now, when a community does not succeed in recognizing and supporting all of man's needs, it loses some of its reasonableness and morality, even if it makes progress in organizing services.

From the hospital, however, issues forth almost naturally the strongest reminder of respect

for man, for every person and for the whole person. It broadcasts a message of acceptance and love, of serenity and hope which leads people to overcome pessimism, despair and rejection of life. From this remarkable crossroads at which people of different cultural and social backgrounds meet to face the same problems, there is a pressing invitation to whoever serves man in the season of suffering never to forget or betray respect for human dignity. Only the active cooperation of health-care workers, families and administrators can allow an adequate response to such expectations.

4.The Christian community, in its various components - priests, laity and consecrated persons– will not fail to offer its cooperation in that sensitive undertaking to help the sick draw full spiritual benefit from their experience. Christians, in fact, even though they have diverse responsibilities, must feel that the places of suffering are “their own”, mindful of the words of Christ: “I was sick and you visited me” (Mt 25:36).

Their first task, then, is to work with the sick person to fight against the illness, without

neglecting anything that can be licitly done or attempted to bring relief of body and spirit to the suffering person.

In situations in which recovery is possible, and still more in those in which the illness cannot be arrested, it is fundamental for the sick person not to feel isolated from family and community. It is especially necessary for the doctors and health-care workers to establish a loving, attentive and personalized relationship with them. Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary during a time of harsh persecution of Christians, used to say that “the true physician considers his activities on behalf of the patient as a priestly activity, as an act of worship. .. A good doctor is scientifically trained, but also has a large heart capable of suffering with the sick whom perhaps he does not even know .. The doctor’s work is truly a maternal vocation, he carefully questions the sick person, listens patiently, helps him. How man broken souls, how man cold hearts a physician-believer can reconcile with God, even at the last instant, by some tactful words!” (Memorie, Milan, Rusconi, 1975, p. 66).

It is necessary, then, to help the suffering person use his condition as an opportunity to grow in the virtue of hope and in spiritual maturity. “Suffering as it were contains”, I wrote in the Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, “a special call to the virtue which man must exercise on his own part. And this is the virtue of perseverance in bearing whatever disturbs and causes harm” (n. 23).

Christians are called to offer fraternal support

Being confident when one is suffering, however, is not easy. Feelings of defeat and inner rebellion can arise, causing people to end up doubting God’s help. The Christian community, especially through the help of volunteers, is called to offer fraternal support to those experiencing such a state so that they do not lose their reason for hoping, and the sick person can then say with St Paul “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the Church”. (Col 1 24), perhaps managing to make his own as well the Apostle’s other affirmation, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (ibid.). It is not rare for the flower of joy to bloom on the thorny stalk of suffering!

Dear citizens of Cremona! The topic which I have spoken about, taking my inspiration from

the place in which we are gathered, has repercussions which directly involve the whole community because nothing invites people to solidarity and sharing like illness and suffering. Only a society which can accept the sick person and care for him, in imitation of the Samaritan in the Gospel (cf. Lk 10 33-35), can truly call itself human and can offer the new generations the proper criteria for giving life to that “civilization of love” to which all of us, although perhaps unwittingly, aspire.

Cremona, make this your ambition to develop citizens who are open to the values of

harmony, mutual respect, sharing and Love!

May the heart of all your citizens embrace fraternal charity and may a sense of responsibility

in the service, especially of the poor and the weak, grow ever more in those who govern. May the Lord, though the intercession of Mary, a mother who knew suffering, help you.

With these wishes I impart to you and your loved ones my Blessing.