I know a priest who has worked in Haiti for many years. One evening when I was visiting his home, we were reflecting on the day’s experiences. He mentioned how, even still, the painful depths of poverty confront him in new and unexpected ways. Just that morning, he confided, a woman had shown up at his door with a young child. She explained that she had five children, and her own mother who had been helping care for them recently passed away. Having heard that he was someone who helps people, she asked if he would take the child in.
Of course, he could not. And even if he could, what about the next child to arrive at his doorstep? Or the next after that? There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (9:35-38) that I often return to. Jesus is traveling around doing what he does best: teaching, proclaiming the Gospel, and healing. Still, “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” In that moment, Jesus does not respond with a miracle or grand gesture, but a plea to his disciples: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
We do not often consider Jesus as feeling powerless or in despair, but here his conscience is deeply disturbed. It is disturbed in the way that any one of us feels disturbed by the gulf between our boundless compassion and our inability to meet every need. What stands out for me, though, is that in this disturbance - this feeling powerless alongside the powerless - Jesus calls upon his community. In this humbling moment, he seems to acknowledge that all of this need, vulnerability, and hurt can only be met if others take up the call. Throughout the Gospel, whenever Jesus challenges his disciples, the townspeople, or the Scribes and Pharisees, he is effectively confronting his own limitations. He needs them to use whatever gifts they have, whatever voice at whatever tables, to work towards a society that better reflects the Reign of God.
In his apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis echoes the sentiment of this passage, stating that, “If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life.” This disturbance of conscience is preceded by the oft-quoted call to action in the same passage, “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (EG 49).
It is in allowing our hearts and bodies to be “bruised, hurting, and dirty” alongside those who suffer that we open ourselves up to our calling to participate in God’s mission. With Lent approaching, it is valuable to consider the role of disturbance in bringing us into greater solidarity, and moving us towards evangelizing action. We see this in the Liturgical seasons themselves: the initial, joyful encounter with Jesus at Christmas followed soon by the disturbance of the cross, and that history-altering moment in turn leading to our Easter joy and Pentecost commissioning as missionary disciples. In responding as God invites us to, we find new life.
Later in his exhortation, Francis calls upon the example of Jesus as our own impetus for entering into the disturbing complexities of others’ lives, and finding true joy: “Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is nothing else than the culmination of the way he lived his entire life. Moved by his example, we want to enter fully into the fabric of society, sharing the lives of all, listening to their concerns, helping them materially and spiritually in their needs, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep; arm in arm with others, we are committed to building a new world. But we do so not from a sense of obligation, not as a burdensome duty, but as the result of a personal decision which brings us joy and gives meaning to our lives” (EG 269).
“Sometimes,” he continues, “we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people” (270).
That, perhaps more than anything, speaks to the true joy of embracing the bruises and hurt: you feel connected to God and others.
Of course, he could not. And even if he could, what about the next child to arrive at his doorstep? Or the next after that? There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (9:35-38) that I often return to. Jesus is traveling around doing what he does best: teaching, proclaiming the Gospel, and healing. Still, “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” In that moment, Jesus does not respond with a miracle or grand gesture, but a plea to his disciples: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
We do not often consider Jesus as feeling powerless or in despair, but here his conscience is deeply disturbed. It is disturbed in the way that any one of us feels disturbed by the gulf between our boundless compassion and our inability to meet every need. What stands out for me, though, is that in this disturbance - this feeling powerless alongside the powerless - Jesus calls upon his community. In this humbling moment, he seems to acknowledge that all of this need, vulnerability, and hurt can only be met if others take up the call. Throughout the Gospel, whenever Jesus challenges his disciples, the townspeople, or the Scribes and Pharisees, he is effectively confronting his own limitations. He needs them to use whatever gifts they have, whatever voice at whatever tables, to work towards a society that better reflects the Reign of God.
In his apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis echoes the sentiment of this passage, stating that, “If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life.” This disturbance of conscience is preceded by the oft-quoted call to action in the same passage, “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (EG 49).
It is in allowing our hearts and bodies to be “bruised, hurting, and dirty” alongside those who suffer that we open ourselves up to our calling to participate in God’s mission. With Lent approaching, it is valuable to consider the role of disturbance in bringing us into greater solidarity, and moving us towards evangelizing action. We see this in the Liturgical seasons themselves: the initial, joyful encounter with Jesus at Christmas followed soon by the disturbance of the cross, and that history-altering moment in turn leading to our Easter joy and Pentecost commissioning as missionary disciples. In responding as God invites us to, we find new life.
Later in his exhortation, Francis calls upon the example of Jesus as our own impetus for entering into the disturbing complexities of others’ lives, and finding true joy: “Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is nothing else than the culmination of the way he lived his entire life. Moved by his example, we want to enter fully into the fabric of society, sharing the lives of all, listening to their concerns, helping them materially and spiritually in their needs, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep; arm in arm with others, we are committed to building a new world. But we do so not from a sense of obligation, not as a burdensome duty, but as the result of a personal decision which brings us joy and gives meaning to our lives” (EG 269).
“Sometimes,” he continues, “we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people” (270).
That, perhaps more than anything, speaks to the true joy of embracing the bruises and hurt: you feel connected to God and others.
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