A few years ago, I read an autobiography called "Story of a Carmelite Nun". One particular passage struck me because of its beauty. In it, the Carmelite recounts the horrors experienced by American soldiers returning from the war (Vietnam, if I remember correctly). She stated that in those hours of severe darkness, it was the Carmelites' duty to pray for the soldiers, because in their misery, someone else's prayers had to carry them. She didn't want the soldiers to give in to despair, having only this to say to Christ: "in my darkness, 'there was no one to put me into the pool when the waters (of mercy) were stirred.'"
What a beautiful understanding of the role of each Christian as a member of the Body of Christ. Very often, we perceive people in a very limited black and white way: they either desire God's mercy, or they do not. We err, sadly, in being judges of the heart. Those who want God's mercy, we welcome. Those who do not, we can shun, scoff at, even push even further away from that mercy.
During one of the Sunday liturgies, I observed a mom sitting a few rows ahead, struggling with a fussy infant. Her child was crying on and off, and I would catch my attention straying towards them. At some people, she started gently and playfully nudging the baby's face with hers to the point where he started giggling. His older siblings were also smiling, and so was I.
Instead of assessing the child's actions and punishing him, the mother chose to carry his weakness and help him regulate his emotions by bringing her mercy to him. It is this approach that God displayed, and displays always, towards us. “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you." (Isaiah 49) He knew we were incapable of coming to His mercy, to bridge this chasm, to even call for it. There was nothing that could heal the self-inflicted wound of sin, and no Old Testament ritual, no healing pool, could do it. We were like the paralytic: we knew the source of healing, we saw it before us, we even desired it, but we could not of our own accord reach and receive it.
It is why the Word condescended in love into the world, that He may become the "man to carry me into the pool when the waters are stirred."
Mature souls, in seeing the wounds of others, desire not to judge the worthiness of the person or the qualities of the heart. The souls which are more deeply identified to Christ are the ones that bring that healing to others, instead of judging them for not being able to reach it. It is no wonder that the Pharisees despised Jesus. Their approach was to clamour and complain about how the Sabbath law was broken, because a paralytic man was now carrying his bed and walking. Had they been Christ-like, one of them would have carried him into the pool when the waters of Divine mercy were stirred. May we be Christians, not Pharisees. May we be souls that bring healing to the wounded, rather than the wounded to their judgement.
Comments