JOHN PAUL II, WITH A COLD, GREETS FAITHFUL FROM STUDY WINDOW

VATICAN CITY, FEB 11, 2003 (VIS) - Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope's vicar for the diocese of Rome, presided at Mass this afternoon in St. Peter's Basilica for the ill and for the pilgrims from UNITALSI, an Italian organization of volunteers who assist sick people on pilgrimages to Marian shrines.

Pope John Paul, who has a slight cold, was scheduled to address the faithful in the Basilica at the end of the Eucharistic celebration for the 11th World Day of the Sick but instead greeted them from his study window after the Mass. He told them that it was a great joy for him to meet them, especially the sick among them. Holding a candle, as were the faithful in St. Peter's Square, he added: "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this candlelight gathering."

In his talk, read by Cardinal Ruini, the Pope noted that, through hymns and prayers, everyone in the basilica would be "spiritually joined" to the faithful gathered in Lourdes as well as those present in the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

"Observing the venerated image of Our Lady of Lourdes, our glance goes to the Rosary she has in her joined hands. The praying Virgin seems to wish to renew the invitation made of little Bernadette, to recite with trust the holy Rosary. With what joy we welcome that exhortation on the World Day of the Sick, which is a significant event of the Year of the Rosary."

"Dear sick people," he stated, "the Rosary carries within it the Christian answer to the problems of suffering: it draws from the Easter mystery of Christ. ... In the sorrowful mysteries we contemplate Christ who takes on Himself, so to say, all the 'sicknesses' of man and of mankind. The Lamb of God assumes not only their consequences, but also their deep cause, that is, not only the evils themselves but the radical evil of sin."

The Holy Father observed that "in this year disturbed by many concerns for the fate of mankind, I desired that the prayer of the Rosary have as its specific intentions the cause of peace and of the family. You, dear brothers and sisters who are sick, are on the 'front line' to intercede for these two great intentions."

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