We speak of
parrhesia, of apostolic courage, and we think of pastoral plans, this is good,
but the same parrhesia is also needed in prayer. Do you struggle with the Lord?
Do you argue with the Lord as Moses did? When the Lord was annoyed, tired of
his people, he said to him: “Don’t worry.... I will destroy everything, and I
will make you the head of another people”. “No. No. If you destroy the people,
destroy me too”. But, these were real men! Do we have enough guts to struggle
with God for our people?..
Do not be
ashamed of the flesh of your brother. In the end, we will be judged on our
ability to draw close to “all flesh” — this is Isaiah. Do not be ashamed of the
flesh of your brother. “Making ourselves close”: closeness, nearness, being
close to the flesh of one’s brother. The priest and the Levite who had passed
by before the Good Samaritan did not know how to draw close to the person who
had been beaten by bandits.
Their hearts
were closed. Perhaps the priest had looked at his watch and said: “I have to go
to Mass, I cannot be late for Mass”, and he left. Excuses! How often we justify
ourselves, to get around the problem, the person. The other, the Levite, or the
doctor of the law, the lawyer, said: “No, I cannot because if I do this
tomorrow I will have to go and testify, I will lose time...” Excuses! Their
hearts were closed. But a closed heart always justifies itself for what it has
not done. Instead, the Samaritan opens his heart, he allows his heart to be
moved, and this interior movement translates into practical action, in a
concrete and effective intervention to help the person.
At the end of
time, only those who have not been ashamed of the flesh of their brother who is
injured and excluded will be permitted to contemplate the glorified flesh of
Christ.
Pope
Francis, Address to the priests of the Diocese of Rome, March 6, 2014
Reflection – Well, it is Palm Sunday, Passion
Sunday, and this little bit of the pope’s address lines up quite nicely with
the liturgical place we are in right now. ‘Do not be ashamed of the flesh of
your brother.’ This is what we see in Jesus today. He was not afraid or
repulsed or ashamed to draw very close indeed to the flesh of humanity, to the
wounds and stench, the blood and gore, the broken bodies and more broken souls
of his brothers and sisters.
In fact, He could do what we cannot. We
can be present in mercy and love, give practical help and a compassionate
listening heart to another person; Jesus could do all that, and more. He could
enter in and take on the flesh of the world, the vulnerable heart of the human
world, the very reality of sin and death and the burden every human being
carries. He could, and did, actually embrace all of that in the events we hear
about today at Mass and carry through this Holy Week.
Jesus is the savior of the world, not us.
But we can be merciful. We can be kind to one another and simply do what is in
our power to help one another. All caught up in and made one with and
mystically bound to the action of Christ, the love of God.
This is our faith. This is the entry into
glory, into heaven—to practice mercy in this life and in that to open ourselves
up to the transforming mercy of God. We do not ‘earn’ God’s mercy by being nice
to one another—that would be Pelagianism—but rather our choice, our frail
efforts to be loving and good to our neighbor allow God’s gratuitous gift in
Jesus Christ to penetrate our stubborn, stony hearts.
So, simply my brothers and sisters, let
us be done with the justifications of the ‘priest and the Levite’ and simply
apply ourselves to the task of love, in whatever form that task presents itself
in our immediate circumstances. But in this, we are drawn most deeply into the
contemplation of Christ, into the heart of reality, which is the crucified
flesh of Jesus become the risen and glorious flesh of Jesus, become the life of
the world and the glory of God, the deepest and most perfect manifestation of
the heart of the Trinity until we see Him face to face. Happy Holy Week to you
all, and may love conquer all, in and for all of us.
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