This Sunday's reading from the Letter to the Romans tells us that we are children and heirs with Christ "if only we suffer with him." Loved ones of passengers due in on overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil suffered stunning news upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris Monday morning: Air France Flight 447 had disappeared over the Atlantic.

Midweek, research vessels from several nations were sailing toward a site some 600 miles off the northeast coast of Brazil where what was thought to be debris from the jet had been spotted, while aviation experts tried to determine why the plane carrying 228 people ended up in the sea. Later reports said the debris was in fact not from the jet, but by the weekend crews later did begin finding bodies and debris from the flight at another site.

Fierce thunderstorms, lightning, and severe turbulence had been reported prior to the plane's disappearance, but the final cause was likely a combination of these and other unknown factors, experts said.

The crew made no distress call before the crash, but the plane's warning system sent automatic messages just before it disappeared, reporting lost cabin pressure and electrical failure.

High seas and heavy winds hampered the search for debris, and an investigator said the black boxes may never be found, given that the depth of the Atlantic Ocean at the likely site of the crash can sink to more than 22,900 feet.

Charlstie Laytin, 31, of Island Park, New York, whose uncle and aunt, Michael and Anne Harris, were two Americans on the flight, hopes to see the investigation continue until the victims' families know what happened. "It's so hard to come to the point of closure when you don't have your loved ones in front of you to grieve over," she said.

Brazil began three days of national mourning Tuesday, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy and relatives of the victims were attending an ecumenical service at Notre Dame Cathedral later Wednesday for the crash victims.

Source: Articles by Greg Viscusi and Andrea Rothman for Bloomberg.com, Christine Negroni for the New York Times, and Federico Escher and Emma Vandore for the Associated Press