PopeWatch: Long Pneumonia

I hope that when I might be doing my purgatory on earth at least some folks are praying for me like the so many around the world who are now praying for Jorge. He is well blest. Lucky man.

I suppose this may happen each of the uncountable times these words are said

May the divine assistance remain always with us
and
May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace
Amen

Without sarcasm, esp for me, just in case I add

And may the souls of the unfaithfully departed . . .

Guy, Texas

I have suffered from asthma for all my adult life. It is miserable and scary. I once had a sudden, severe asthma attack, turned blue, and blacked out. Luckily, my husband was near and heard me fall. The paramedics rushed me to the ER. To this day I have no memory of being in the ambulance or those fine men carrying me down the steps and saving my life. But I do remember – whether it really happened or was a hallucination – floating above the gurney in the ER in a blue fog, listening to all the conversations, and wishing I had had time to tell my husband I love him.

I can only imagine what Pope Francis is suffering, with only one lung and part of another, fluid filling up his chest, and fever burning him up. Pneumonia and suffocation from asthma and lack of lung capacity is a frightening and very physically painful thing to endure.

Pope Francis may not be the pope we wanted, and he definitely is flawed, just as all of us are. But I think *all* of us – and I trust the author and readers of this fine page are good and faithful Catholics – need to sincerely pray for the spiritual and physical health and protection of Pope Francis, the hierarchy, our bishops and parish priests, and all the young men in seminary or who may have a religious vocation. And those with whom we disagree and find hard to love need us to pray for them all the more.

Just my two cents. God bless and protect all here.

Praying for all in “Our Father….”