You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved
by the photos of Pope Francis blessing a disfigured man that went viral around
the world last week.
Vinicio Riva, 53, an Italian who suffers with a rare
genetic disease that gives him painful growths all
over his body, told Italian news magazine, Panorama, that when
the Pope embraced him he felt only love, the Daily Mail (UK) reports today.
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| Joseph Merrick, aka John Merrick 1862 - 1890 |
All his life, Mr. Riva has been shunned and reviled. He has probably never known the loving
caress of a woman. He will probably
never have children. Even doctors have
been horrified by his appearance. He has
undergone numerous operations on his heart, throat and eyes. He has difficulties walking because of the
growths on his feet. A torturous, lifelong prison of pain that might shake the
faith of weaker, lesser men and women. What kind of cruel deity
would want to inflict such suffering on His creation? Job's complaint.
Yet Mr. Riva’s faith is a shining example to us all. Through his faith and the love of his Church,
he experiences the love of Christ. He is
united with Christ in His suffering, and Christ lives in him and through him.
In a world obsessed by artificial beauty and outward appearances
– boob jobs, nose jobs, false nails, false eyelashes, hair extensions, teeth whitening – it is easy to forget the question: what does our soul look like? How beautiful or ugly is that?
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| checked your soul recently? |
On Larnaca seafront, I regularly see the same man begging
with a plastic cup. He has a deformed,
paralysed hand, he shuffles with a limp, and he has a speech
impediment. He is lucky if he gets a
few coins on a busy day. Most people turn away in
revulsion, back to their frappes and inane conversations.
There is another man, probably in his mid-50s, white haired,
with mental health problems. He walks
around the town all day shouting to himself or to anyone who will listen. Not many do.
I have seen a father who takes his Downs Syndrome
teenage son for walks along the promenade.
People stare at them.
These are our modern day ‘Elephant Men’.
The CTO, the semi-governmental authority that oversees
tourism in Cyprus, boasts on its website that there are wheelchair facilities
at the airports, and disabled parking places in public car parks and on public
roads. Woohoo. How many wheelchair users do you see in
Cyprus? How many
cracked, broken pavements make wheelchair use impossible?
Where are all the blind, all the Downs Syndrome children, all the disabled, and the physically deformed of Cyprus? Shut behind closed doors. Cared for by institutions and their families, perhaps (we hope) - if they are lucky to have them - but out of sight and out of mind. At least in the
collective public consciousness.
Loving God, you teach us that the power of the Holy Spirit means more
than any human limitation or weakness.
Through surrender to Your will, may we bear witness to the truth that
the source of our human dignity is not the outward condition of the body, but
our likeness to the Creator. We ask this
through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint Germaine Cousin, 1579-1601: French saint and intercessor for the
disabled, the sick, the unattractive, the abused and the poor. Her body remained incorrupt after death.
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| St. Germaine Cousin Feast Day: 15th June |
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