Hello Steve,

>LL>According to CNN, aides have given Pope John Paul II the Last
>LL>Rites, his medical condition continuing to worsen.  It looks as if
>LL>the end is near...and a new beginning.

SA>Well, I won't be surprised if the end has come by the time you read this.

The end?  Or a new beginning?

SA>He has certainly lived a remarkable life, and as far as I know has done
SA>nothing out of malice either to the authorities who oppressed him, or
SA>those who sought to kill him, and was not afraid to put his views to
SA>the civil authorities of any political stripes.

"If I am not ready to die, I am not worthy to live."
- Pope John Paul II

JPII has often said those words, and seems to have lived those
words his entire life, from the moment he was born to this very day.
His mother was frail when giving birth, and died young as a result.
Certainly that affected him greatly, and shaped his future way of
thought.  As a young man, while Nazis controlled Poland, and later
when the Communists were in control, is another example.  Now at the
end of his remarkable life, he chose to remain at the Vatican rather
than return to the hospital.  To him, death is part of life.  To
reject that part of life would be to reject one's own self, or
sense of humanity.  And of course, there is the Christian belief
of a new beginning, when one passes from one world to the next...

--Lee


 * SLMR 2.1a * hAS ANYONE SEEN MY cAPSLOCK KEY?
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5