As my aunts undergo surgery this week

Please keep my aunts in your prayers. One aunt had triple by-pass and a valve replacement yesterday and another is having cataract surgery tomorrow. They are both in their 80s.

Thank you for remembering them and their families.

A reflection from Pope John Paul II:

The Church prays for the health of all the sick, of all the suffering, of all the incurables, humanly condemned to irreversible infirmity. She prays for the sick, and she prays with the sick. She is extremely grateful for every cure, even if it is partial and gradual. And at the same time, with her whole attitide she makes it understood -- like Christ -- that cure is something exceptional, that from the point of view of the divine "economy" of salvation it is an extraordinary and almost supplementary fact.

11 February 1979