(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Saturday met with members of the Movimento Apostolico
Ciechi (Apostolic Movement for the Blind) and the Piccola Missione per i Sordomuti
(Little Mission for the Deaf), who were holding a joint “Days of Sharing” in Rome.
The
two Catholic organizations were reflecting on the theme “Witnesses of the Gospel for
a culture of encounter.” Pope Francis told them the word “encounter” in their theme
presupposes another encounter, the one with Christ.
“In effect, to be witnesses
of the Gospel, we must have met Him, Jesus,” Pope Francis said. “One who really knows
him, becomes his witness. Like the Samaritan woman – as we read last Sunday – This
woman met Jesus, spoke to Him, and her life changed. She returned to her people and
said ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Messiah?’”
Pope
Francis said the Samaritan woman is the kind of person Jesus loved to meet and make
disciples: the marginalized, the excluded, the despised.
“But we think of the
many people Jesus wanted to meet, overall those people marked by illness and disability,
to heal and restore them to full dignity,” he said.
The Holy Father said it
was important for these people to become witnesses to a “new attitude”, which may
be called a culture of encounter.
He compared this culture with a culture of
exclusion and prejudice typified by the Pharisees who called Jesus and those he healed
“sinners”, and believed disability to be God’s will.
“The sick or disabled
person, properly starting from his fragility, from his limitations, can become a witness
to encounter: The encounter with Jesus, which opens to life and faith; and the encounter
with the other, with the community. In fact, only those who recognize their own fragility
and their own limitations can build fraternal relations and solidarity, in the Church
and in society.”