The Personalist Project
http://www.thepersonalistproject.org/home/comments/needs_become_graces_wounds_heal
Accessed on September 27, 2023 - 1:17:12
In remarks before public prayers in St. Peter's Square yesterday, Pope Francis made a point about the Gospel of the day that had struck me too at mass. Always before I had focussed on Thomas' fault, his unbelief. "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe." This time I noticed the remarkable tenderness and condescension of the Lord in accommodating Thomas' personal need. Here is the Pope [my emphasis]:
“Thomas is a person who is not easily satisfied, a seeker who wishes to check in person, to attain his own personal experience. After his initial resistance and uneasiness, he too finally reaches the point of believing. ... Jesus awaits him patiently and is attentive to the difficulties and insecurities of the last man to arrive. … [Thomas] was able to 'touch' the paschal Mystery that fully demonstrates God's salvific love, rich in mercy. And like Thomas, we too, on this second Sunday of Easter, are invited to contemplate, in the wounds of the Risen Christ, the Divine Mercy that overcomes every human limit and shines through the darkness of evil and sin”.
Jesus seems to be much more concerned with answering human needs than he is correcting human faults. And then, when those needs are met, they become a source of particular grace and strength. The other Apostles may have believed more readily in the resurrection. But none of them had proclaimed with such clarity and conviction the truth of Jesus' divinity. "My Lord and my God."
I know I'm not the only one who was raised to despise weakness and need, in others and in myself—to rest my hope on my strengths. Slowly but surely, I'm learning better.
We "make up what is lacking in the cross of Christ"—we help heal and redeem the world—exactly by our wounds.