Vatican City, 29 March 2014 (VIS) –
“Witnesses to the Gospel for a culture of encounter” is the theme
of the Day of Sharing organised by the Apostolic Movement of the
Blind, with the participation of the Gualandi Mission for the Deaf
(the Little Mission for the Deaf-Mute), as well as the Italian Union
of the Blind and Partially-Sighted. These organisations were received
in audience this morning by Pope Francis, who commented on the theme
of the Day.
“The first thing I observe is that
this expression ends with the word 'encounter', but first this
presupposes another encounter, the one with Christ. Indeed, to be
witnesses of the Gospel, it is necessary to have encountered Him,
Jesus. … Like the Samaritan woman. … A witness to the Gospel is
someone who has encountered Jesus Christ, who knows him, or rather,
who feels known by him: recognised, respected, loved, forgiven, and
this encounter … fills him with a new joy, a new meaning for life.
And this shines through, is communicated, is transmitted to others”.
“I have mentioned the Samaritan woman
because she offers a clear example of the type of person Jesus liked
to meet, to make them his witnesses: marginalised, excluded,
disdained people. The Samaritan woman was this type, inasmuch as she
was a woman, and a Samaritan – the Samaritans were despised by the
Jews. But let us think also of the many that Jesus wished to
encounter, especially people affected by illness and disability, to
cure them and to restore their full dignity to them. It is very
important that precisely these people become witnesses to a new
attitude, that we can call a culture of encounter. A typical example
is the man blind from birth … marginalised in the name of a false
idea that he had received a divine punishment. Jesus radically
refuses this way of thinking – truly blasphemous! - and performs an
act of God, giving him the gift of sight. But the important thing is
that this man, as soon as this happens to him, becomes a witness to
Jesus and His work, that is the work of God, of life, love and mercy.
While the Pharisees, from their safe distance, judges both him and
Jesus as 'sinners'; the cured blind man, with disarming simplicity,
defends Jesus and in the at the end professes his faith in Him, and
also shares his fate: Jesus is excluded, and he is excluded too. But
in reality the man enters into a new community, based on faith in
Jesus and on brotherly love”.
“Here we have the two opposing
cultures. The culture of encounter and the culture of exclusion, of
prejudice. The sick or disabled person, precisely because of his or
her frailty and limits, may become a witness to this encounter: the
encounter with Jesus, that opens us to life and faith, and to the
encounter with others, with the community. Indeed, only those who
recognise their own fragility and their own limits can build bonds of
fraternity and unity, in the Church and in society”, concluded the
Holy Father.
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