Pope Francis battled to the end. He fought through his great suffering. The way he died showed the real measure of the man. Amazing how one moment in an 88-year life can be so defining, so inspiring.

He didn’t die alone. Jesus was with him till his last breath. Mary, too, watched over him. He showed us how suffering can be noble — how life is still valuable even in the last hours.

We Catholics talk a lot about suffering. We are supposed to believe suffering is a sacrifice and that the world is transformed by sacrifice, as the way Jesus did on the cross. But how many truly understand that? How many of us see suffering as God’s punishment rather than a universal condition of our broken world? How many believe that suffering puts us in solidarity with much of mankind?

Some believe we can offer up our suffering the way the priest offers up the Eucharist. As Dominican Father James Brent has said in a popular video: We can offer up our pain and illness for most anything — a sick friend, someone who has strayed from the Church and so on. In Father Brent’s imagining, the sick bed is a kind of altar.

Father Brent has also said that illness and suffering need not be time wasted. It’s a time for the deepest prayer — even for saving others.

Recall how Pope St. John Paul II struggled with Parkinson’s disease for many years. For religious Catholics, his wasting away, until his death in April 2005, remains a poignant sign that life, no matter the state, can be holy.

Christ gave suffering meaning. To non-Catholics and even some Catholics, this idea sounds like a form of masochism. It’s anything but. Illness and suffering are part of the natural order. It’s not unnatural to be sick or feel pain … or to die. It’s what we do with it that gives it meaning.

The real problem is for those who feel they are suffering for nothing. It would be like dying alone in a room with no one to offer comfort. They forget that God draws close to us when we need him the most.

When we bear our suffering, as Pope Francis did, we are giving our friends and family a model to emulate.

In Canada, where I live, euthanasia is legal. It’s supposed to allow for a dignified death. How can having a needle shoved up your arm be dignified? People do it because they are lost and desperate — another sign our world is broken.

For the past few months, we heard updates on Pope Francis’ declining health. We knew he was struggling to take a breath. Anyone who has ever had an asthma attack knows the feeling of gasping for air. It’s like drowning on dry land.

We kept hearing about his imminent demise and even whether the doctors should let him go. It seems Francis wanted to live a bit longer; he was not ready to die, even though death would have released him from his terrible burdens.

As I’ve written on this site, I have dealt with terrible pain. It can seem like being in another world, one in which its inhabitants limp by. It takes effort and faith to understand that we can align ourselves to the cross. It reminds us that on the other side of the cross, there is the tranquility of heaven, an eternity of peace, God willing.

Jesus never said any of this would be easy. No kidding.

To his great credit, Pope Francis made all of us think more seriously about the world’s migrants. He talked about it on Sunday. He elevated those poor people from statistics to flesh-and-blood human beings. Where others have been cold-blooded about their assessment of the desperately poor and the homeless, Francis showed Christlike love. He reminded us of what Christ said about the poor.

He showed us the response to suffering is not pity but love. Francis felt their suffering, which also says a lot about the man, as many of us would rather never think of masses of people in awful distress.

But it was on this past Easter Sunday that I think he rose to the greatest heights. Even though he was still so sick — you could see it in his face — he was out and about blessing thousands of the faithful who had jammed into St. Peter’s Square. He was out there blessing the pilgrims, to give them hope.

On his last day, he was truly Christ’s shadow on earth, reminding the world of the most important things Jesus expected of his followers: Show mercy and have compassion. Read the Sermon on the Mount, if you don’t believe me.

Rest, Francis, rest. You deserve it.