11/28/2017 02:00pm

In our suffering, we collaborate with Christ for the salvation of the world. Our suffering is therefore anything but random and meaningless. It is cosmically restorative, even though it may be a horrible burden to the sufferer. John Paul didn’t intend to whitewash suffering. Doing so would have been both insensitive and false. But he did want to show that God can use even suffering for the betterment of humankind. It, like everything else, has a place in the economy of salvation.
—from the book John Paul II: A Short Biography by Kerry Walters