Fr. Ferdinando Colombo: Burying the Dead
Actualizing the works of mercy through the eyes of Fr. Ferdinando Colombo
Not even this last work of corporal mercy is as simple and obvious as one would be tempted to think. Victims of hatreds and wars, countless human beings remain on the earth as corpses. Perhaps, we are not even moved. Interventions respond more to hygienic or medical concerns than to motives of compassion.
However, I have the impression that the surest event of our lives, its conclusion, is sailing in bad waters in our days, stripped of the mystery and seriousness that is its due. In fact, the attitude toward “our sister death” – as St. Francis called it – today is one of tremendous fear. The very idea is removed.
It is not talked about. We say, impersonally, that “we die,” but we do not seriously consider that one day or another we too will die. It is a problem for others. (Valentino Salvoldi)
A silent slaughter continues in the Mediterranean
This is what the Director General of the Migrantes Foundation, Monsignor Gian Carlo Perego, denounces.
But let us leave the word to Pope Francis:
Who is responsible? Everyone and no one!
“Even today this question emerges forcefully: Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters? No one! We all answer like this: it is not me, I have nothing to do with it, it will be others, certainly not me.
But God asks each of us, “Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?” Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility; we have fallen into the hypocritical attitude of the priest and the altar server, which Jesus spoke of in the parable of the Good Samaritan: we look at our half-dead brother on the side of the road, maybe we think “poor guy,” and we continue on our way, it is not our job; and with that we reassure ourselves, we feel okay.
The culture of affluence, which leads us to think of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of others, makes us live in soap bubbles, which are beautiful, but they are nothing, they are the illusion of the futile, the temporary, which leads to indifference to others, indeed it leads to the globalization of indifference. In this world of globalization we have fallen into the globalization of indifference.
We have become accustomed to the suffering of the other, it does not concern us, it is none of our business!
Adam where are you? Cain, where is your brother?
These are the two questions that God asks at the beginning of human history and also asks all people of our time, including us. But I would like us to ask a third question, “Who among us has wept for this fact and for facts like it? Who has wept for the death of these brothers and sisters? Who wept for these people who were on the boat? For the young mothers who were carrying their children? For these men who wished for something to support their families? We are a society that has forgotten the experience of weeping, of ‘suffering with’: the globalization of indifference has taken away our ability to weep!”
Herod sowed death to defend his own welfare, his own soap bubble. And this keeps repeating itself… Let us ask the Lord to erase what is left of Herod in our hearts as well; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in us, even in those who in anonymity make socio-economic decisions that pave the way for dramas like this. “Who has wept?” Who has wept in the world today?” (From Pope Francis’ homily in Lampedusa, July 8, 2013)
You will not have my hatred
Love is stronger than hatred. And life stronger than death. This is understood once again when reading the poignant post written on his Facebook page by Antonie Leiris, the partner of one of the 89 victims of the Bataclan theater in Paris.
“Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional person, the love of my life, the mother of my child, yet you will not have my hatred. I don’t know who you are and I don’t even want to know. You are dead souls. If this God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, every bullet in my wife’s body will have been a wound in her heart. Therefore, I will not give you the gift of hating you. It would be to give in to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You would like me to be afraid, to look at my fellow citizens with distrust, to sacrifice my freedom for security. But yours is a losing battle. I saw it this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she came out Friday night, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than 12 years ago. Obviously devastated with grief, I grant you this small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know that she will accompany our days and that we will meet again in that paradise of free souls that you will never enter. There are two of us left, my son and I, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world. I have no more time for you, I must go to Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is just 17 months old and he will have a snack like every day and then we will play together, like every day, and all his life this petit garçon will give you the affront of being free and happy. Because no, you will never even have his hatred.” (Massimo Gramellini)
This seventh meditation concludes the works of corporal mercy
We can summarize them by saying that they are the works of charity, the first of which is to purify our love, that is, to truly love. Without forgetting that true love is translated into concrete gestures: we are called to remember that we are love and that, by loving, we are transformed into Love. That is why death will not have the last word on us. A grave is too small to contain our love. We will rise again.
PRAYER by Sister Anna Maria Canopi
Stay with us, Lord Jesus,
For without you our path would sink into the darkness of night. Stay with us, Lord Jesus,
to lead us on the paths of hope that does not die and nourish us with the bread of the strong that is your Word.
Stay with us, Lord,
until the last evening when, having closed our eyes,
we will open them again to your face transfigured by glory
and we too shall be found in the Father’s arms in the Kingdom of eternal splendor. Amen.
Online version of the book by clicking on “The Work of Mercy – Fr. Ferdinando Colombo – browsable”
Photo
- “Le Opere di Misericordia“, fr. Ferdinando Colombo