S Rose of Lima: "regarding your endurance and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions you endure"

This is evidence of the just judgment of God,
so that you may be considered worthy of the Kingdom of God for which you are suffering.

-- 2 Thes1:1-5, 11-12

Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases." But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the "sin of the world," of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion. (CCC 1505)

From Saint Rose of Lima:

Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven. (CCC 618)
When her mother reproached her for caring for the poor and the sick at home, St. Rose of Lima said to her: "When we serve the poor and the sick, we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus." (CCC 2449)

S Margaret Clitherow, English martyr: "He redeems your life from destruction"

... he crowns you with kindness and compassion

-- Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12

Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God."

-- CCC 2473