Mercy

"As we think of a slow and tiring recovery from the pandemic, a danger arises: to forget who is left behind." This is the warning that Pope Francis launches in the homily of Sunday in albis, the second of Easter. He celebrates it in the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, "which John Paul II wanted as a Sanctuary of Divine Mercy".

There is a virus worse than Covid-19, Bergoglio admonishes: "Indifferent selfishness". The pope reflects on the anguish and pain caused by the pandemic: "In the trial we are going through, we found ourselves fragile. We need the Lord, who sees in us, beyond our frailties, an irrepressible beauty. With him we rediscover ourselves precious in our frailties ». Now, while reasoning for a restart after the mass lockdown, the risk is that "we are hit by an even worse virus, that of indifferent selfishness.

It is transmitted from the idea that life improves if it goes better for me, that everything will be fine if it goes well for me ". It starts from here and ends up "selecting people, discarding the poor, sacrificing those behind on the altar of progress. However, this pandemic reminds us that there are no differences and boundaries between those who suffer. We are all fragile, all the same, all precious ». What is happening "shakes us inside - Francis exhorts - it is time to remove inequalities, to heal the injustice that undermines the health of all humanity!".

We need to learn “from the early Christian community, described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. He had received mercy and lived with mercy: “All believers had everything in common; they sold their properties and substances and shared them with everyone, according to the needs of each one ”». It is not ideology - Francis says - "it is Christianity".

Domenico Agasso Jr.
NP may 2020