SERVANTS OF MARY: PRAY THE ROSARY AS YOU CARE FOR THE SICK

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2002 (VIS) - A letter that the Pope addressed to the Servants of Mary, Ministers of the Sick, who participated in the work of their 23rd General Chapter, was made public today.

"The charism which characterizes you, attention to the sick in their homes," writes the Holy Father, "goes well with the creative strength of the charity that all ecclesiastical activity must have, which also means concretely conveying the exigency that each 'gesture of help be felt not as humiliating charity but as fraternal sharing'."

After emphasizing that in their chapter they highlighted the need to "know how to be with Mary and as Mary in the world of pain," John Paul II recalls that "last year ... I asked the Virgin Mary to enter homes with you to reveal Jesus, the true Savior and Redeemor of each human being. Now I repeat that, recommending that you do it while saying the Rosary frequently as you care for the sick. What better way to assimilate the 'same sentiments of Christ' than to implore his Mother to watch over her sick children or to participate more deeply in the meaning of suffering?"

At the end of the letter, the Pope invokes the intercession of St. Maria Soledad Torres Acosta, whose statue was blessed today after being moved to the exterior of St. Peter's Basilica, asking her to "make your Institute grow with new vocations."

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