Is there a connection?

Remember when Princess Diana died? Mother Teresa was at the same time experiencing ill health. It turned out that it was not even a week after the princess died that Mother Teresa died. Many believe the princess was on the verge of becoming Catholic and that Mother Teresa, with whom she was close, had something to do with that. It was almost as if Mother went in pursuit of Diana's soul.

Today, there is this report from CWNews.com:

New crisis in Pope's health?

Vatican, Mar. 22 (CWNews.com) - The director of the Vatican press office abruptly withdrew from a news conference on Wednesday, March 22, amid rumors of a new crisis in the health of Pope John Paul II. The Vatican has made no recent announcement about the Pope's health, aside from formal notice that the Holy Father would not hold his regular weekly public audience on Wednesday. That notice, made by Father Ciro Benedettini, the deputy director of the press office, had been expected.

However, reporters were put on alert by the last-minute announcement that Joaquin Navarro-Valls would not attend a press conference, where he was scheduled to discuss a new film about John Paul II that is scheduled to air on Italian television on Easter Sunday.

Navarro-Valls gave no reason for his sudden withdrawal. But one of the organizers of the news conference, asked to explain, replied: "You know very well why."

Speculation about the Holy Father's physical condition has heightened since his brief public appearance on Palm Sunday, when the Pope seemed to be in acute pain. During a 2-minute appearance at the window of his apartment in the apostolic palace, the Pope put his hand to his head in a sign of distress-- a gesture that he had made several times during a video appearance at a youth meeting on March 17. During that earlier meeting, the video feed of the Pope's image was disrupted several times, evidently while aides sought to ease the Pope's discomfort.

Could it be that the Holy Father is suffering what Terri Schiavo is suffering? Is it that he has taken on himself the sufferings of Christ in today's world, living in his body all that he has written about suffering and the evangelium vitae? Being the mystic that he is, I would not doubt it in the least.

We need more of this in the Body of Christ. Joining our sufferings to Christ's and not being afraid to lack comfort and the comfortable things of our American life so as to be united with Him -- though it makes no sense to the world -- will help to bring about the new evangelization.