POPE JOHN PAUL II - A contemporary Barnabas!

The Boston Globe reports on Pope John Paul II's missive to his fellow priests ...

In a highly personal message to priests, Pope John Paul II said yesterday he was uniting his sufferings with those of Christ in advance of Holy Week services and the first Palm Sunday Mass he will skip in his 26-year papacy. ....

The letter released yesterday contained his most personal comments on his fragile health since Feb. 1, when he was rushed to the hospital for the first time last month.

''My thoughts turn to you, dear priests, as I spend this time recuperating in hospital, a patient alongside other patients, uniting in the Eucharist my own sufferings with those of Christ," John Paul wrote.

''In this spirit I want to reflect with you on some aspects of our priestly spirituality," the letter said.

''All the world followed the suffering of the Holy Father and how his thoughts went out to all," said Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Vatican's office for priests, in introducing the message at a Vatican news conference.

The Pope and I don't see eye-to-eye on our theology but we have the same love of the Lord Jesus and the same love of our sheep.

No question about it, anyone in the discomfort he is in who turns his thoughts to others is my kind of guy! He is a contemporary Barnabas in the true sense of the Word.

The name Barnabas is mentioned several times in Scripture, but more specifically references Joseph, a Levite, in Acts 4:36, who is called "a son of consolation."