There is an analogy between Jesus’ Gospel witness this Sunday and Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the earth, Laudato Si. The particular ingredient of the analogy is the transformation of a system that marginalizes people. Both Jesus and Pope Francis give care to people who are made poor, sick, and forgotten by directing healing attention to them. Jesus directs healing to a marginalized Gentile who cannot hear and whose speech has been reduced to groans. Pope Francis directs healing to marginalized people and a marginalized earth who cannot survive how they are made poor, sick, and forgotten. Can we hear their groans?
Those marginalizing people then and now are the wealthy of the world. In the encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis notes three elements of marginalization; the market, technology, and consumption. Francis calls it “the deified market” and negates whatever “magical conceptions” we have of it or faith we’ve placed in it. He writes, “by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion.” (#109) Francis asks if it is “realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations?” (#190) As to technology, “our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.” (#105) Though we may not realize it, “we’re free to limit & direct technology; to put it at the service of another type of progress – one which is healthier, more human.” (#112) Francis goes on to link our lack of freedom with consumption. We are neither aware of nor are we exercising our freedom because people have been convinced “they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume.” (#203) As human beings reduced to being consumers, we are “caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending.” (#203) It “suppresses our openness to what is good, true, beautiful.” We must not “forget this dignity which is ours.” (#205) But this dignity which is ours has been forgotten. The dignity most forgotten is of those whose speech is reduced to painful groans, those made vulnerable by the market, technology, and consumerism. This describes people who are poor and the earth. As Francis puts it: there is an “intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet.” (#16) We need “to hear both the cry of the earth & the cry of the poor.” (#49) Doing so would “cultivate a shared identity… In this way, the world, and the quality of life of the poorest, are cared for, with a sense of solidarity … aware that we live in a common home which God has entrusted to us.” (#232)
Francis’ encyclical is, like Jesus’ witness, addressed to “every person living on this planet.” (#3) Too, it offers healing: “We require a new & universal solidarity.” (#14) “We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family.” (#52) There is “the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution.” (#114) Can we hear and give voice to the healing needed?
Prayer: Source of All Being, “Fill us with peace, … with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature.” (#246)
Question: How can we “dare to turn what is happening to the world” toward a healing solution? (#19)
September 6, 2015 Gospel Mark 7:31-37 Twenty-Third Sunday In Ordinary Time