"When I was young sick people used to intimidate me. [They] bore in their bodies a dread mystery." (Frossard, Portrait, p 20) "I remember that at the beginning the sick intimidated me. I needed a lot of courage to stand before a sick person and enter, so to speak, into his physical and spiritual pain, not to betray discomfort, and to show at least a little loving compassion. Only later did I begin to grasp the profound meaning of the mystery of human suffering."
(John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way, p 75)
