0
0
Image: Crucifixion, seen from the Cross by James Tissot, c.1890.
1 Peter2:21-24
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth”. When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.r
Pope Francis Catechesis on the Wounds of Christ
Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 5 April 2023
Catechesis. “The Crucifix, source of hope”
Dear brothers and sisters,
Last Sunday the liturgy made us listen to the Lord’s Passion.
It ends with these words: “They sealed the stone” (Mt 27:66): everything seems to be over. For Jesus’ disciples, that boulder marks the end of hope. The Master was crucified, killed in the most cruel and humiliating way, hung from an infamous scaffold outside the city: a public failure, the worst possible ending – at that time he was the worst.
Now, that despondency that oppressed the disciples is not entirely foreign to us today. We too have gloomy thoughts and feelings of frustration: why so much indifference to God? This is curious: why so much indifference to God? Why so much evil in the world? But look, there is evil in the world! Why do inequalities continue to grow and the longed-for peace does not arrive? Why are we so attached to war, to hurting each other? And in everyone’s hearts, how many expectations have vanished, how many disappointments!
And again, that feeling that the past times were better and that in the world, perhaps even in the Church, things do not go as they once were.
In short, even today hope sometimes seems sealed under the stone of mistrust.
And I invite each one of you to think about this: where is your hope?
Do you have a living hope or have you sealed it there, or do you have it in the drawer as a memory? But does your hope push you to walk or is it a romantic memory as if it were something that does not exist? Where is your hope today?
In the minds of the disciples remained fixed an image: the cross.
And that’s where it all ended. That’s where the end of everything was concentrated. But soon they would discover a new beginning in the cross.
Dear brothers and sisters, God’s hope sprouts in this way, is born and reborn in the black holes of our disappointed expectations; And true hope, on the other hand, never disappoints.
Let us think precisely of the cross: from the most terrible instrument of torture God has obtained the greatest sign of love.
That wood of death, which has become a tree of life, reminds us that God’s beginnings often begin with our ends. So He loves to work wonders.
Today, then, let us look to the tree of the Cross so that hope may sprout in us: that daily virtue, that silent, humble virtue, but that virtue that keeps us standing, that helps us to move forward. Without hope you cannot live. We think: where is my hope?
Today, we look to the tree of the cross so that hope may sprout in us: to be healed of sadness – but, how many sad people … When I could go to the streets, now I can’t because they don’t leave me, but when I could go on the streets in the other diocese, I liked to look at the gaze of the people. How many sad looks!
Sad people, people who talked to themselves, people who walked only with their mobile phones, but without peace, without hope. And where is your hope today?
It takes a little hope to be healed of the sadness with which we are sick, to be healed of the bitterness with which we pollute the Church and the world.
Brothers and sisters, let us look at the Crucified One. And what do we see?
We see Jesus naked, Jesus stripped, Jesus wounded, Jesus tormented.
Is it the end of everything? There is our hope.
Let us grasp then how in these two aspects hope, which seems to die, is reborn.
First of all, we see Jesus stripped: in fact, “when he had crucified him, his garments were divided and cast lots” (v. 35).
God stripped: He who has everything allows himself to be deprived of everything.
But that humiliation is the way to redemption. God thus conquers over our appearances. We, in fact, find it difficult to lay ourselves bare, to do the truth: we always try to cover up the truth because we do not like it; We clothe ourselves in exteriority that we seek and take care of, masks to disguise ourselves and show ourselves better than we are. It’s a bit like the habit of make-up: inner make-up, looking better than others …
We think that the important thing is to flaunt, to appear, so that others say good about us. And we are concerned with appearances, we are satisfied with appearances, with superfluous things;
But in this way we do not find peace.
Then the make-up goes away and you look in the mirror with the ugly face you have, but true, the one that God loves, not the “maquillata” one.
And Jesus, stripped of everything, reminds us that hope is reborn by doing truth about us – by telling the truth to himself – by dropping duplicity, by freeing us from peaceful coexistence with our falsehoods.
Sometimes, we are so used to telling ourselves falsehoods that we live with falsehoods as if they were truths and we end up poisoned by our falsehoods.
This is needed: to return to the heart, to the essential, to a simple life, stripped of so many useless things, which are substitutes for hope.
Today, when everything is complex and we risk losing the thread, we need simplicity, to rediscover the value of sobriety, the value of renunciation, to clean up what pollutes the heart and makes us sad.
Each of us can think of a useless thing that we can get rid of in order to find ourselves. Think of you, how many useless things.
Here, a fortnight ago, in Santa Marta, where I live – which is a hotel for many people – the rumor spread that for this Holy Week it would be nice to look at the wardrobe and undress, to send away the things we have, that we do not use …
You can’t imagine the amount of things! It’s nice to strip yourself of useless things.
And this went to the poor, to the people in need. We, too, have so many useless things inside our hearts – and outside as well. Look at your wardrobe: look at it.
This is useful, this is useless … and clean up. Look at the wardrobe of the soul: how many useless things you have, how many stupid illusions.
Let’s go back to simplicity, to real things, which do not need to wear makeup. Here’s a good exercise! :et us take a second look at the Crucified One and see Jesus wounded.
The cross shows the nails that pierce his hands and feet, his side open.
But to the wounds of the body are added those of the soul: but how much anguish!
Jesus is alone: betrayed, handed over and denied by his own, by his friends, even by his disciples, condemned by religious and civil power, excommunicated, Jesus even experiences the abandonment of God (cf. v. 46).
On the cross also appears the reason for the condemnation, “This is Jesus: the King of the Jews” (v. 37). I
t is a mockery: he, who fled when they tried to make him king (cf. Jn 6:15), is condemned for having made himself king; although he has not committed crimes, he is placed between two evildoers and the violent Barabbas is preferred to him (cf. Mt 27:15-21). In short, Jesus is wounded in body and soul.
I ask myself: how does this help our hope? Thus, Jesus naked, deprived of everything, of everything: this, what does he say to my hope, how does he help me?
We too are wounded: who is not wounded in life? And many times, with hidden wounds that we hide out of shame. Who does not bear the scars of past choices, misunderstandings, pains that remain inside and are difficult to overcome?
But also of wrongs suffered, of sharp words, of unforgiving judgments?
God does not hide from our eyes the wounds that have pierced his body and soul.
He shows them to show us that at Easter a new passage can be opened: making one’s wounds holes of light. “But, Your Holiness, do not exaggerate”, someone can tell me.
No, it’s true: try; proof. Try to do it.
Think of your wounds, those that only you know, that everyone has hidden in their hearts. And look at the Lord. And you will see, you will see how from those wounds come out holes of light.
Jesus on the cross does not recriminate, he loves.
He loves and forgives those who wound him (cf. Lk 23:34).
Thus he converts evil into good, thus converts and transforms pain into love.
Brothers and sisters, the point is not to be hurt a little or a lot by life, the point is what to do with my wounds.
The little ones, the big ones, those who will leave a mark in my body, in my soul always. What do I do with my wounds? What do you and you do with your wounds?
“No, Father, I have none, wounds” — “Be careful, think twice before saying this”.
And I ask you: what do you do with your wounds, those that only you know?
You can let them infect in resentment, in sadness or I can unite them to those of Jesus, so that even my wounds become luminous. Think of how many young people do not tolerate their wounds and seek suicide as a way of salvation: today, in our cities, many, many young people who see no way out, who have no hope and prefer to go further with drugs, with forgetfulness … Poor. Think about these.
And you, what is your drug, to cover the wounds?
Our wounds can become sources of hope when, instead of crying over us or hiding them, we wipe away the tears of others; when, instead of harboring resentment for what is taken from us, we take care of what others lack; when, instead of brooding in ourselves, we bend down to those who suffer; when, instead of thirsting for love for us, we quench the thirst of those who need us. B
ecause only if we stop thinking about ourselves, we find ourselves. But if we continue to think about ourselves we will never find ourselves again. And it is by doing so that, Scripture says, our wound is soon healed (cf. Is 58:8), and hope flourishes again.
Think: what can I do for others? I am wounded, I am wounded by sin, I am wounded by history, everyone has their own wound.
What do I do: lick my wounds like this, all my life?
Or do I look at the wounds of others and go with the wounded experience of my life, to heal, to help others?
This is today’s challenge, for all of you, for each one of you, for each one of us.
May the Lord help us to move forward.
