“Every day, saline was pumped through his body to clean out his pleura and scar tissue. A chest tube was connected to a drainage system, producing a trickle of water. The pain was enormous. Bergoglio didn’t care for the usual platitudes that people kept telling him, things like “This will pass” or “Won’t it be nice when you’re back home?” But one visitor broke away from the clichés and truly comforted him. It was a nun whom he had remembered ever since she had prepared him to receive his First Communion, Sister Dolores. “She said something that truly stuck with me and made me feel at peace. ‘You are imitating Christ,’” he recalled.” PainSufferingPope FrancisImitation Of Christ Book:Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words Source: Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words
“Incidentally, do you ever think of your own death? For a while now it’s been a daily companion of mine. Why is that? I’m over seventy years old and the thread of life I have left on the reel isn’t long. I’m not going to live another seventy, and I’m starting to consider the fact that I have to leave everything behind. But I take it as something that’s normal. I’m not sad. It makes me want to be fair with everyone always, to sign the final flourish. Mind you, it’s never occurred to me to make a will. But death is in my thoughts every day.” DeathMemento MoriPope Francis Book:Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words Source: Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words