Redemptive Suffering: Life is Valuable, Even When It Hurts

What do Catholics believe about redemptive suffering? And why should you care?

Many people today believe it’s better to die or sin rather than suffer. They don’t understand why God allows suffering. False compassion often leads to euthanasia, abortion, and LGBTQ ideologies.

So, how should Catholics respond? How can we help people understand the spiritual value of suffering? And how can we offer true compassion to those in need? Find out by watching today’s episode!

 

Colleen 0:07
Hello, and welcome to Living a Culture of Life Podcast by Human Life International. I’m your host, Colleen, and I’m joined today by Father Boquet, our President. Welcome, Father.

Fr. Shenan Boquet 0:15
Colleen, as always, a blessing to be with you today.

Colleen 0:17
It’s great to be here with you this morning, Father, and today we’re going to be talking about the Catholic understanding of suffering. Because when we don’t understand suffering in its proper context, it’s easy to fall into a false compassion, and justify things like euthanasia and abortion for people that are terminally ill or suffering from different sicknesses. So we need to understand suffering in order to be able to respond to those as Catholics. So, Father, what is the Catholic understanding of suffering? What is this idea of redemptive suffering?

Fr. Boquet 0:44
Sure, well, for that, let’s start with the word to redeem. I think it’s important, you know, to have the language that the Church also uses. So redeem means to save, to free someone. So you think about the fact that as a Christian, we recognize the redemptive love that God has given to us in the Redeemer, the one who came to set us free, free from death, to free us from the captivity of sin. But there’s also a sense of setting another person free, so as Christ sets me free, my willingness to follow Him, and to adhere my life to Him and to be guided by the Holy Spirit, and to live my life fully for Him and Him alone, is freedom. And so it is also from myself toward you, for example, the solidarity that I have with my brother and sister, as Jesus says, No greater love has someone than to lay down their life, you know, for a friend. And so this value of my own suffering, my own, if you will, inconveniences, my own moments of acceptance in a humble way of those little difficulties of human life that have a value for myself, teaching me to trust God, to be patient, to be kind, to be obedient, but also Colleen, how to use those also to model that to others, and to give them also a witness to that redemptive value. And so I think it’s very important to start with that, you know, and once we understand that word redeem, to save, to free, then we can approach this conversation about, how do we deal with my own personal suffering? And then how do I deal with also with the suffering of others? Or how do I offer my own suffering for the good and wellbeing of another human being?

Colleen 2:32
Now, I know that as Catholics, you’re not supposed to seek out things that are evil, and couldn’t you see suffering as an evil because it’s a…deprivation is the word, depriving of good? So how do you then deal with that tension of, we’re not supposed to seek out evil for its own sake, but yet we also see suffering as a good thing? How do we understand that as Catholics?

Fr. Boquet 2:52
Well, I think it’s important for us to really recognize there is not a given day that we do not encounter the cross, if you will, the difficulties of human existence. I mean, we know recently, there was an earthquake, you know, that affected the lives of many families and people were lost. We know there was a great fire, you know, in Maui, that affected people’s lives. Today there is a great war and battle in Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia. I mean, we see so much suffering, in the sense that we see the human reality that we deal with on a daily basis. And so I think it’s not so much I have to go “looking” for things, it’s the reality that life is imperfect, because of the Fall, and that it is not fully, even though we have the gift of redemption, we also know that the consequences of the Fall still remain with us. And so my own body, in a way, will fight against me because of diseases. And you know, I could be driving my car and be in a car accident because someone wasn’t paying attention. You know, there’s so many factors. So what I would say is, that it’s about the approach, it’s about looking at every moment as an opportunity to unite myself to Christ in His suffering. And in doing that, allowing Christ to unite himself to me as well. And through the Holy Spirit to see that as a single work, that Christ’s suffering continues, even in my own suffering.

Colleen 4:17
So basically, you’re not seeking out suffering for its own sake, for the pain, for the hardness that it has. You’re seeking out…or not, maybe not even seeking out, you’re accepting that suffering and uniting it to Christ for the sake of something higher.

Fr. Boquet 4:29
Right, I mean, I think the word seek we can spend probably too much time on, but I mean, think of a mother who welcomes a child. Her own body is going to experience great difficulties and go through the pains of childbirth, for love. So it’s not so much seeking out pain, she’s not seeking out pain, she’s accepting love, she’s welcoming life. And that’s a very different approach as a Christian than, you know… I don’t go out looking for cause or reason to suffer, but I accept those sufferings or those difficulties freely as God’s permissive will. And it’s a very different approach as a Christian. And so I think what’s also important is, you know… today I brought the Holy Word of God to help us a little bit with this. Because oftentimes, you know, we don’t see in the lives of the saints, in the lives of the holy ones that have gone before us. You know, I look at my own family, and I look at family members and friends in my priestly life now for 30 years, who accepted the cross lovingly, with just great resolve. And, you know, in realization that Christ was truly alive in these individuals, and their humility, their willingness to accept the difficulties. I mean, I’ve been in many parts of our world where there’s great poverty, and to see a mother and father sacrifice their own need, making sure their own children are fed. So everywhere around us is this redemptive love, this love of another human being, this love of wanting the good of another person, even over my own good. But in reality–this is the wonderful paradox of it all–it actually is for my own good, because…Paul talks about this, and he says–this is from 1 Corinthians, and it’s in chapter one, and it’s in verse five: “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort, too.” And it’s a very beautiful thing to realize that the more that I unite myself to Christ, even through the daily sacrifices, and what we would say, the daily cross, the sufferings, that actually I become more free. I’m actually set free, because I realize that even as a person that may be diagnosed with a terminal illness, that this is not the end of that story. For a Christian, for a believer, for one of faith, we know that this is not the end, that death will not conquer. And that’s important in our approach as well.

Colleen 5:06
And correct me if I’m wrong, but this idea of redemptive suffering was new with Christianity. Until the Cross, there wasn’t this idea that suffering was ever a good thing. People saw suffering as something evil that had to be endured, not something that could be offered up and united to Christ, because Christ hadn’t come yet. And so how do we then explain that to people that aren’t necessarily Catholic or Christian? How do we help people in society who have never had that idea expressed to them? How do we help them understand this?

Fr. Boquet 7:30
Sure, I mean, again, just going back to the example of a woman who’s now with child, I mean, think of just the daily events that occurred every day, in every person’s life, that revolves around other human beings. So I mean, I’m using the Scripture “No greater love,” but in reality that’s lived out every day, you know, so that a mom and dad who are up all night long because of a sick child, or a son or daughter who was caring for an elderly parent, you know, there are examples upon examples that we could use in just human life, in the daily living of our lives, that we encounter this reality. And how many people in that daily life are making sacrifice upon sacrifice, because of love, because of care for another human being, because they want that other person to have what they need? And so they’re willing to sacrifice?

Colleen 8:28
I think our world does understand, in some sense, suffering for the sake of someone else, they have an easier time grasping that. But then how do you respond to a terminally ill person who’s suffering at the end of their life, they’re not going to recover? In some ways, like you said, at the beginning, there’s false compassion. There’s this idea that euthanasia might be good, like, let them escape from suffering like we do to animals. How do you address that? How do you help people that don’t understand Christian ideas of suffering, address that?

Fr. Boquet 8:54
Well, I think we have to look at the nature of the human person. And I think that’s very important is that the human person… now from our own approach, obviously, we recognize that the human person is the only creature that is made in the image and likeness of God, and that is made, you know, for eternal life, is a body/soul, you know, is a unity of body and soul, the person. And we treat persons differently than we do other things or other animals within our world. And so because we’re dealing with a human person, there is an approach, there is a way of addressing the situations in front of us. And so that’s the starting point of the conversation: because we’re dealing with the human person, because we’re dealing with a rational being, because we’re dealing with someone who is a spiritual being, someone who has a soul that’s made for eternal life. We have to approach the conversation. And so we don’t walk into these moments treating them you know, as if we would treat a cup that has a crack, that’s no longer usable. We will not treat a human person as we would an empty water bottle that we’ve consumed its content and so we dispose of its outer shell, you know, we we do not approach the human person in that manner. Now. So that’s the starting point of the conversation. Is it easy today in a world that’s lost sight of that? No, it has a very utilitarian mean, which has an approach that basically means what we call in modern language the “quality of life.” So when you and I would have this conversation, we would mean something very different by that terminology, but from a world that has lost the sense of God, and thus has lost a sense of the human person, then that would be more of, “well, you no longer are functioning, you’re no longer able to feed yourself, you no longer are able to…the difficulty in front of you is too overwhelming, the pain is too difficult, you know, so we just need to have compassion and basically, you know, terminate this life, assist you in assisted suicide.” Or, you know, “the fact that you might be born with a cognitive disability, or you might be born with an abnormality, a physical abnormality, this would be just too much for you to bear in life. So let’s just terminate this pregnancy now.”

Colleen 11:16
And that’s the mindset of most people today, or maybe not most people, but of today’s society, especially, as we see going on in Canada right now with the whole push to have more euthanasia for people who have mental illnesses.

Fr. Boquet 11:26
Exactly. It’s a challenge, Colleen, because, you know, we have to really break that mindset, we have to change it. Mother Angelica and, you know, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, many, many others… John Paul II, you know, spoke of this, and you mentioned earlier, this false compassion. It’s really about the approach that John Paul in speaking about euthanasia, for example, and physician-assisted suicide in his landmark encyclical Evangelium Vitae, you know, talks about my responsibility toward my brother or sister. And what we often say is that we don’t want our brother or sister to be burdened with this great difficulty–in reality, it’s me, it’s myself, I don’t want to be burdened with the care of this individual. So it’s a misplaced compassion. Instead of turning toward the other, it turns toward self. And that’s really where a good percentage of our world is, Colleen, it’s self-absorbed, and not other-absorbed. And again, whether we be Christian, whether we are not, the same issue is there: how do we approach these moral dilemmas? How do we approach these difficult human situations of life, and for us, Christ brings the light to these moments, he sheds the greatest light upon them and exposes the value of the human person. Remember, we go back to what I began with, to be redeemed, that Christ redeems us. So he recognizes, as God has shown to us, this great value of the human person. And so this is a value that God is willing to give of himself to protect, to defend, and to save, and to free us from our captor. And the captor here is death, and the Evil One. So that’s the approach that we as Christians walk into these moments with. And all we have to do is spend time with St. Paul, read all of his letters, especially the letters of the Colossians, his letter to Timothy, the Corinthians, we hear St. Paul talk about, “I freely accept the sufferings, for your good and wellbeing.” Well, from the very early Church, we see the mindset of how this is to be approached. And that Paul, if I may put Paul… that Paul so love the world, that Paul so loved his neighbor, that Paul so loved those that he was with every day, that he was willing to endure chains, and being scourged, and nearly drowning, and being humiliated, and being mocked, all because of love. And so it is with a couple–and I think in a way it’s so important as we have this conversation–a couple who finds themselves not planning to be pregnant, but now are welcoming a child. And the initial thought, especially to someone that is not prepared, and maybe has a very worldly mindset that this is going to cause many difficulties, the initial approach of the world is, well, “terminate the pregnancy,” abortion, kill the child. But that is not the response. The response there would be, again, “No greater love,” that I will take on this responsibility. I will take on this duty, I will be willing to die to myself because of the value of this little life, this innocent, vulnerable life, and I’m going to do all that I can to sure that this life has life. And maybe at the end, we give our child up for adoption because we want what’s best for our child, maybe we decide we’re going to keep this child and I will not go to school, you know, to finish my college, I’ll go to work for a while and go back to school. In other words, we all make these decisions daily. And I think that’s the challenge for us, Colleen, as we enter into talking about redemptive suffering, that we can make that conversation, very, very common, and I mean not in a bad way, common, but it relates to everyone, because everyone does it every day. You know, a mom gets up every morning to care for her children. You know, how many grandparents today are spending more time with their grandchildren to help their children who are working so hard to provide for their families, they’re sacrificing their time for their own family. You know, how many people we saw during the issues of COVID, you know, that were willing to do heroic things to care for other people, putting themselves in great harm. Think of the soldier that goes out to battle every day, and he makes a supreme sacrifice…well, most of us will not make the supreme sacrifice. Our life may not be asked of us. Alright, but we do make sacrifices daily.

Colleen 16:21
It’s other-centered is what it is. And there’s a profound amount of humility in being able to put yourself behind everybody else. I mean, you have to make sure that you’re getting the physical care that you need, and all of that, but you also are giving of yourself to other people and the taking care of yourself is for the sake of then being able to better take care of people around you.

Fr. Boquet 16:39
I also think it’s joy. I mean, again, back to that, “No greater love,” you know, I think of a mom, you know, and having been in moments where there’ve been emergency deliveries, I’ve been in a few of these moments, and, you know, to see the great difficulty of bringing forth life into this world. And the moment that little child was placed in her arms, it just disappears. This great joy, of being able to have reached this moment where I have given my all, and that is also what Christ reminds us so beautifully, that there is this wonderful blessing, this wonderful reward, you know, for those that are willing to pick up that cross, to be willing to make that ultimate sacrifice. And let’s be honest, I mean, I’m not married. And you know, as a priest, each and every day, like every other person, there are these moments that are presented to us, these little inconveniences, these little moments of, you know, a need to be patient, to be kind, to be forgiving, to be merciful, to be compassionate, to listen to someone when we’ve got so many other things on our plate. And yet, that is the most important thing in that moment, is that person in that moment. So something as simple as that.

Colleen 17:56
So you said earlier that we need to be able to challenge and change that mindset of the utilitarian. How do we do that?

Fr. Boquet 18:04
Go back to St. Paul. I really do, Colleen, because think about it, you know, what St. Paul do? He says to the people, you know, in a sense, look at the life that I’m living for you. So that is a way to break the mindset. And because…

Colleen 18:20
Model it?

Fr. Boquet 18:20
Exactly, because maybe they didn’t understand the words like you know, when we speak about a redemptive suffering, many people within our own Catholic tradition don’t understand it, because it may not be preached about or spoken about enough. And so, you know, with this think about Paul: Paul’s encountering people who are not Christian, you know. Or he’s dealing with an early church that’s very young and suffering. They’re hurting, they’re persecuted. There’s people dying. “What happens to our dead?” they would ask Paul, “Those who have fallen asleep, what happens to them?” All right. So Paul shows them by his own humility, shows them by his own sacrifice, and he gives them courage. He gives them strength. Think about parents, you know, when their child is sick, a parent can’t take away the pain. If they could, they would, but they show a strong face, you know, they put on the best of air to show their child that, you know, though they’re concerned, they don’t show their child they’re concerned. They want their child to be comforted, to be consoled. Mom and Dad are here. I’m holding your hand.

Colleen 19:29
Have you ever seen the Italian movie Life Is Beautiful? I love that movie. It’s the… Father, explain it for our audience so that they have some context if they haven’t seen it. It’s about this father, he’s Jewish, I believe in a concentration camp. And he has a little son with him who’s maybe three or four? Is that his age?

Fr. Boquet 19:30
A little older but it’s in that age bracket, yes.

Colleen 19:50
Okay, young enough that he doesn’t know, the little boy doesn’t know what’s going on. And the father spends the entire movie in this camp, goofing off to make his son laugh and to shield him from the horrors of the concentration camp. So I think there’s one scene, it’s been years since I’ve seen it, where the little boy is looking out the window, because he’s being hidden by his father so the soldiers don’t find him. And his father’s doing hard work in the fields, and he’s just exhausted and dead. But every time he walks by the window, he does like this funny little walk. And it’s because he knows his son’s watching, and his son cracks up. And it’s just such, it’s such a beautiful example of this father, enduring these incredible hardships and having that joy, and being able to work through it for the sake of His Son and to protect his son from this, from unnecessary suffering. Obviously, there’s going to be suffering that goes on, but he’s trying to make sure that his son still sees the beauty of life and the joy of life, and he endures all this suffering to be able to do that.

Fr. Boquet 20:43
And in their life, and in the movie, he dies, the father. So it’s a great testimony. But also part of that, Colleen, is that he convinces everybody else with him to play the game. So that’s also part of it in a way. Back to Paul, it’s about showing an example. And you know, Pope Franci, has been talking about this using different language. But you know, the word accompaniment, the idea of walking in solidarity with someone.

Colleen 21:06
You just, that was my next question is, how do you do that? How do you walk with them?

Fr. Boquet 21:10
Yeah! And I mean, I think about, you know, as a pastor, how many times I’ve been in people’s homes, with those who are dealing with death, or disease, and watching loved ones just hold their hand, you know, wipe their brow, change their clothes, change their linens, feed them when they can’t feed themselves. This is true solidarity. This is true companionship, this is sharing in the suffering of another human being. But also what happens is when people see your comfort, they see your joy, just like I’m talking about, this father playing this game to protect his child from the consequences of war and the reality of death. And he shows his child great joy and great wonder and great awe. This is what happens at the bedside of so many people. And it is false, Colleen, to pretend that giving someone an injection is the answer to that. Because again, we’re dealing with the human person, you know, who has a soul, and we’re helping them also prepare for death, we’re helping them prepare for eternal life. So we have a spiritual aspect of this that we have not yet mentioned, but it’s been indirectly talked about. But that is also the reality here! To do something of this nature, to deprive someone of the opportunity to prepare themselves, to heal, to reconcile, to make amends, to repent, you know, to ask for forgiveness from someone that they’ve hurt, you know, all that gets lost in all this. And I think what’s also important on the issue of abortion, it prevents this couple, this individual, you know, to do something more than they think they’re capable of doing. And they run away from the opportunity in front of them. But it also deprives me of the opportunity–I recently returned from Rwanda, you know, we’ve written on this on some of our mission reports, a beautiful young lady, her name is Yvette. And Yvette, herself a child, you know, sadly, a circumstance that–today in our country, a person would be in jail for being involved in such an act, and a child was conceived. And so, beautifully Yvette, through the guidance and help of others, welcomed her child, a little girl. And I’ve had the privilege of holding her and being with her.

Colleen 23:26
She’s so adorable, so cute.

Fr. Boquet 23:28
Beautiful child. And what it does–and I watched–forty people in our conference all attend to this little girl, all of them. And that is an example of being in solidarity, uniting ourselves to someone in need. And yes, that meant maybe I didn’t eat first. Yvette, go get your plate of food. I’ll watch the baby for a little while. And the possibility is, maybe–and it did happen!–there wasn’t much left when it was my turn. But that’s okay. That’s part of the sacrifice too.

Colleen 24:01
Well and the beaty of that was that we did an appeal on that. So we had so many generous donors who also stepped in to help support her, and we were able to buy her a sewing machine so that she could continue to care for her little daughter too. So that’s not saying that the first thing that happened was a good thing. It’s not, it was evil. But the suffering that came about because of that was turned into joy.

Fr. Boquet 24:18
It also turns self-absorption into other-absorption, you mentioned it differently earlier, and it’s so true. And that’s part of our Lord’s teaching of pick up the cross. It’s not just, you know, pick up the difficulties or, you know, to pick up this massive problem. It’s these daily encounters with the cross, but the cross is freedom. And that’s the beauty here. And that’s the part… to watch this young girl, who, yes, life will be difficult, but you know, she’s not alone. There are people walking with her, helping her, stepping in to support her, bringing her back to her family, healing wounds that needed to be healed. And this little girl, all she knows is love, this little baby. All she knows is love. And to watch her laugh and to watch her be so happy as a child…. And this is something again that teaches us, you know, what it means to love. And it’s what John Paul talks about in Evangelium Vitae, again I mentioned earlier on the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide, but it applies at the beginning of life. And also, let’s look now: we have an aging population, Colleen, around the world. So much so that the Holy Father has been talking about this, so much so that a recent document from the Pontifical Academy for Life was signed, all dealing with the fact that we have an aging world. Now, we have two ways of approaching this: we can celebrate the beauty of what it means to grow old and the blessings of age. Or we can take it as many in the world look at it now, as a burden. And this is what we have to challenge, and realizing that, you know, this is a chance for people to still contribute, to participate, and for us to step out of our own self-absorption, and to help others, if you will, to unite ourselves to Christ. What does Christ do? He stoops down. I love to reflect on that, that God becomes man (the Incarnation), stoops down. He steps down to pick me up. That’s what it means to unite ourselves to another human being: to step down, to stoop down to, to get down on our own knees. And anyone who’s listening who has cared for a loved one who’s dying, who is caring for a child with special needs, you know, who is caring for anyone, knows exactly what I’m talking about–who has maybe not had a sleepful night in weeks because it has been broken by all the difficulties in this, or to someone that’s lying in a hospital bed, you know, completely dependent upon other human beings’ care, generosity and tenderness. And so we live in a world today that, I have to be honest with you, I’d be somewhat frightened to go to hospitals today. Because the mindset in so many of our institutions is not looking upon a person of great value. But as someone that, you know, that might be burdensome, taxing to the system, costly to the system. No. And that makes it frightening to be in these moments. I want to challenge the mindset as you do, Colleen. And that is where every person is seen for the value that they are, this beautiful value of being a human person, and to be able to unite myself to Christ, and Christ thus unite himself to me, and that Christ continues to minister to his people. So as Mother Teresa of Calcutta would say so beautifully, it is Christ that is acting, you know, through these wonderful sisters and brothers and people around the world. It is Christ who heals. It is Christ who loves. It is Christ who wipes their brow. It is Christ!

Colleen 24:50
We’re just the instruments.

Fr. Boquet 27:13
Yeah! And that’s what I love about our Church, I really do is that, you know, when we consider St. Veronica being the first healthcare provider, she swoops down and she wipes the face of Jesus. And then Jesus leaves his imprint for her to remember. Gratitude! And that’s also part of this, is being grateful that I have been redeemed, I have been set free. And that, go back to St. Paul. That’s what motivated him. That’s what drove, if you will, his engine, and that’s what helped him to exhaust himself for others. And you know, I shared just recently, during a Mass, that one of my own staff, a grandfather, and one of his sons and his wife were welcoming a new little girl. And the little girl was diagnosed with a genetic abnormality, that she was not going to survive, you know, after birth very long. And of course, the mindset of the doctors and the nurses was, well, let’s terminate the pregnancy; you don’t want your child to suffer, do you? You know, why go through all this? You don’t want to suffer by carrying a child to term that, you know, is not going to survive. And what was the response of my staff member’s son and daughter-in-law? That this is our little girl, and she’s loved for who she is. And for the moments that she will live outside of the womb, she will know one thing and one thing only: that she is loved. “No greater love.” I really believe that the challenge in us is to re-teach the world, as John Paul said, about the value of human life, that a person is someone, not a thing. And that has a value, because we’re dealing with human person, whether that person be Christian, or whether that person not be Christian. And if I may, think back to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Colleen, her love for Christian and non Christian alike. She served every person, because every person is made in the image and likeness of God. And that’s the approach. That’s the challenge.

Colleen 30:22
Before we wrap up today, Father, can you think of an example of some saint who lived out this redemptive suffering in a way that could be a great model for our listeners? Besides St. Paul!

Fr. Boquet 30:33
Sure, let’s not talk about St. Paul. And of course, I just talked about Mother Teresa of Calcutta! But look at John Paul II. I think that most of our audience and most of the world are very familiar with this man, I mean a pontiff who crossed decades of being a great servant who fought tirelessly for the value of human life, fought for all peoples around the world, and stood his ground on the value of human life and would not relent. And toward the end of his life, as he dealt with Parkinson’s disease and an assassination attempt, all these things in his body, and we watched a man of vibrancy…you know, I remember as a young priest, here John Paul was, this vibrant young/middle-aged man full of energy, vitality, virility, all these wonderful things. And then what did we watch, as we did with our own grandparent–and great-grandparents myself I had the privilege of knowing–you watch them age and you watch their bodies not able to move as easily, and then for him especially to show us the value of suffering, he accepted that cross and he united his suffering for the redemption of the world. He embraced it out of love and he taught the world the value of suffering more than anyone of recent memory. He taught the world especially when he stood up in that window a week before he died, trying to communicate to the world and wanting to give a blessing to the world, and what did we see? A man, you know, whose body had been ravaged by Parkinson’s disease. He could not speak, he wanted to speak so badly, his mind still sharp, and what do we see? A man who can’t move his lips, somewhat drooling, but that was love. His final act was to show the value of love and suffering to the world. I mean, I won’t forget it. And I think that a person, whether they be Christian or non-Christian, looking at that, some would say, “Ah, you know, what is all that about?” But the majority of the world, I think, Colleen, stood back. And when you look at how many millions of people traveled to the city of Rome to pay their respects, Christian and non-Christian alike, to a man who loved the world, loved God’s creation, and loved the pinnacle of that creation–every person–I think he stands out today. I can give a litany of others, but you know I think that would be one that many people can understand. And if people are looking, you can go watch this video of what I’m talking about, you can actually see this final act–okay, well, this “final curtain,” if you will, of John Paul II. And I think, here’s a man like a candle, vibrant and tall and bright and brilliant, still shining brightly at the end of life, but having spent himself reaching the final end and to that very end giving his all out of love.

Colleen 33:33
That’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful image. Thank you, Father, for this discussion.

Fr. Boquet 33:88
Oh, thank you, Colleen. I hope it was very helpful to our audience.

Colleen 33:40
I hope it was too. And to all of our listeners, please like, subscribe, leave us some comments, check out the new ebooks that we have coming out–I’ll link them on the end screen–and keep on living the culture of life! God bless.