PopeWatch: Prayers

It is sometimes easy for Catholics to forget that their popes have their own personal tragedies to endure, just as we all do:

Pope Francis was deeply grieved, the Vatican’s official broadcasting service said on Tuesday, after the deaths of three relatives killed when their car slammed into the back of a truck on a highway in central Argentina.

A nephew of the pope, Emanuel Bergoglio, who was driving the car was in serious condition following the accident just after midnight on Monday. The nephew’s wife, 35, and two children aged 2 years and 8 months died.

“The pope has been informed and is deeply grieved by the tragic news. He asks all those who share his pain to join with him in prayer,” said a statement on the website of Radio Vaticana.

Go here to read the rest.

PopeWatch found this prayer consoling when he suffered the loss of a son:

God of life and death, You have taken a beloved one from me.  My heart is very heavy.  I recall that Your Son, Jesus Christ, became man in all things except sin and that He groaned in sorrow at the death of His friend, Lazarus.  I unite my grief with Yours dear Jesus, as You stood at the tomb of Lazarus.

O Virgin Mother, you know what it was like losing your husband Joseph, and then your child.  dying suspended between earth and heaven, with a sword piercing your sweet soul.  To you do I come in sorrow, begging strength from your intercession, from you who fully understand what it is like to lose one so dear and close.

Share with me, dear Mother of God, the courage, the strong faith that you had in the future resurrection.  Even after Jesus came back to life and ascended into heaven, you knew you were to be left alone for many years before your own assumption into heaven. You comforted the Apostles as their Queen and Mother during those years. Grant comfort to me now as I sorrow in pain at the loss by the separation that has come as a result of the sin of our first parents and my own sins. Wipe away my tears with the merciful love of your Immaculate Heart as you unite me with my loved one through the grace of the Sacred Heart of your Son Jesus Christ.  Amen.

May the relatives of the Pope even now be enjoying the Beatific Vision and may the Pope be consoled by the knowledge that for Christians the grave is not an end but only a gateway to a new and better life.