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MUNDONLINE
Pope Francis... A finger on the wound
Last Sunday we heard a serious warning from Jesus to leave the school of hypocrites. In fact, the letter of Santiago reminded us that a pure and spotless religion means leaving the hypocrisy of listening to the word of God and not putting it into practice.
This Sunday, the Lord Jesus, through the Gospel of Mark, surprises us again because'puts his finger in the sore spot', that is, in the face of evil 'does not stand idly by' nor does he 'turn a blind eye', but rather he is going to touch precisely what he does wrong.
This very cultural and multicultural expression of "putting your finger in a sore spot" has an evangelical origin, Saint Thomas, informed of the Master's resurrection, incredulous in an event of such magnitude, expresses in Jn 20, 25 "if I don't put my finger in the place of the nails and I do not put my hand in his side, I will not believe"
καὶ βάλω τὸν δάκτυλόν μου εἰς τὸν τύπον τῶν ἥλων
καὶ βάλω μου τὴν χεῖρα εἰς τὴν πλευρὰν αὐτοῦ, οὐ μὴ πιστεύσω.
Putting your finger on the sore spot in the case of Tomás is the requestfair and reasonableof someone humble who is willing to change his way of thinking, in the event that he has a personal and coherently reasonable experience that allows it. But in the case of Tomás, Putting your hand in the sore means much more, it means feeling for yourself the Master's wound, making your own experience of the painful wounds of Jesus, personally confronting the traces of violence that destroyed the body of the Rabbi of Galilee. For Tomas this is the just and necessary condition to be able to believe: to share the Master's pain; Believing that Jesus is alive then supposes being content with that pain in order to be able to fully settle his own pain, his own wound: that of abandonment and death by his Master.
But Thomas learned this from Jesus long before, in fact in the Gospel of Mark this Sunday, Jesus himself, before a deaf-mute who comes before him, dares to put his finger on the sore spot. The deaf-mute is a person incommunicado, isolated, in a certain way marginalized but not secluded from society. It is society itself that presents it and Jesus puts his finger on the sore. And it's not the first time he's done it!
The text does not speak of the fact that he was born with this disease or that he acquired it, nor that it is the result of his sin or that of his ancestors, as is normally considered in the biblical mentality, rather the text speaks to us of theimperfection, This is confirmed by the end of the same narration when the surprised crowd expresses with one voice in amazement “everything has been done well”:
Mk 7,37 n,
καὶ τοὺς κωφοὺς ποιεῖ ἀκούειν καὶ [τοὺς ἀλάλους λαλεῖν.
That Jesus puts his finger on the sore of the deaf-mute, on his ears and on his knotted tongue, means that he dares to confront himself with the pain of this person and touches it himself, it means that he touches his imperfection. But Jesus does not touch her evil, her imperfection to rub it accusatively, causing her another unnecessary pain, nor does he touch her imperfection to detect it and feel sorry for it, much less be scandalized by it, NO! Jesus touches the deaf to reconstitute him, to perfect him, to reintegrate him into the normality of community life.
It is in fact the finger of God who from the beginning created the world Ps 8, 3-4:
3 When I contemplate the sky, the work of your fingers,
and the moon and the stars that you have created,
4 I ask myself: What is the human being, so that you think of him?
What is humanity, so that you take it into account?
But even more, because with his own hand, with his own fingers he shapes man and creates him: "The Lord God shaped man with earth" Gn 2, 7
וַיִּיצֶר֩ יְהוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֗ם עָפָר֙ מִן־הָ֣אֲדָמָ ֔ה
and everything does well: “The Lord saw everything he had done and Yes! Everything he had made was very good" Gn 1, 31
וַיַּ֤רְא אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֔ה וְהִנֵּה־ט֖וֹב מְא ֹ֑ד
Lately we are witnessing that the finger of God is pointing at our reality through Pope Francis; Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has not stopped putting his finger on the sore spot and does not take his finger off the line, and for this reason he is abundantly praised or criticized, even within the college of cardinals himself and the guild of some archiepiscopal voices have allowed him to say that he should be removed from office. But it is not by chance that Francisco, without removing his finger from the line, is touching the deep sores that are in the Church and not so much to rub them with the accusatory eagerness of the Puritan, nor to verify that unfortunately there are people like that in the community, far from it. less to be shocked...
NO!
Francis, the current finger of God, seems rather to want, like Jesus, to touch to reconstitute, to perfect, to reintegrate into the normality of community life each and every one of the deaf-mutes whose hearts, intentions, thoughts, desires, orientations are imperfect. Francisco does not doubt and will not take his finger off the line, sometimes he will point, sometimes he will indicate the way, sometimes he will approve with a raised thumb, but what is clear is that God thinks of human beings, he remembers us and that we are dust but the Lord is pointing higher, to the 'magis', to the maximum, on each one of us regarding the following of Christ, why don't we dare?
Let's ask him what do you want from us today Lord? What is our attitude towards imperfection and how can we perfect ourselves in the art of touching to heal like you? how do we touch the sore? How do we approach imperfection? Don't we have a lot to learn from you Master about how to play without damaging, without rubbing accusatively, without turning a blind eye but playing to reconstitute, reintegrate and perfect?
Jesus, teach me your way of making the other feel more human!
May your steps be my steps, my way of proceeding!
Jesus, teach me to contemplate the way you treat others!
Show me your way Lord!
The Lord does justice to the oppressed.
The Lord opens blind eyes, straightens those who are already bending.
(Ps 146, 7ff.)
