by Angelo Forti

When John Paul II underwent a tracheotomy on February 24, 2005, upon awakening from the anesthesia, unable to speak, he asked the nun who was assisting him in the hospital for a piece of paper and a marker and wrote: «What have they done to me! But…totus tuus!”. With a feeling of total confidence in God's will he repeats: "I am all yours"; it was his motto of consecration of his existence to Mary, the mother of Jesus. That exclamation point collected the drama of his existence. At that moment a long season of his pastoral life ended and a new chapter opened in his life.

At that moment he realized that his passion for verbal communication, which had constituted the soul of his generous and passionate dedication to Christ the Redeemer through Mary, had waned. The arduous road of Calvary opened up, "the hour of the cross", in which he would give the Church and the world a significant page of his spirituality and the awareness of being a "servant of God" in imitation of the sacrificed Lamb.
During his teaching he dedicated an Apostolic Letter to human suffering. He had repeatedly spoken of the wounded along the roads of the world and of the many Samaritans ready to bend over their wounds and offer comfort and solidarity. From that May 13, 1981, in St. Peter's Square, his journey began in the company of the cross and, despite his granite and strong faith, it made everyone's questions always echo: «Why do we suffer? What do we suffer for? Is it meaningful for people to suffer? Can physical and moral suffering be positive?”. He often repeated these questions in front of the sick. Because they were not unanswered questions. Even if pain is a mystery inscrutable to human reason, it is part of our burden of humanity and only Jesus is the one who removes the veil from the mystery and brings pain into the cone of light of his love for the suffering and the poor.
In that moment in which the word was a prisoner between his lips he appealed to his inner resources and as always repeated: "thy will be done".
His experience suggested to him that "the mystery of suffering is understood by man as a salvific response as he himself becomes a participant in the sufferings of Christ".
Since childhood, Christ had made him understand that he was destined to lead the Church with suffering as a mirror participation in Christ's passion for God and humanity.
In Salvifici Doloris John Paul II had announced that the Christian must "dispose of evil with Him (with Jesus) through love and consume it by suffering".
On May 18, in the first Sunday Angelus after the attack, the Pope stated: «United with Christ, priest and victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church». In 1994 after hip surgery, on his journey of total adherence to Christ, in the Angelus of May 29, he stated: «I understood that I must introduce the Church of Christ into this Third Millennium with prayer, with various initiatives , but I saw that it is not enough: it must be introduced with suffering, with the attack thirteen years ago and with this new sacrifice."
it is the supreme law of love. In one of his confidences to a nun he said: «You see, sister, I have written many encyclicals and apostolic letters, but I realize that only with my sufferings can I contribute to helping humanity better. Think about the value of the pain suffered and offered with love."
One of the last television images of Karol Wojtyla was at the end of the Via Crucis on Good Friday celebrated at the Colosseum: he was seen from behind, in the wheelchair, embracing the crucifix. He had "disposed of" the evil of the world with Jesus and was ready for the definitive meeting with the Father and how Jesus was able to say: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit". n