The Church Of The Handicapped

We live in a world bombarded by images of people who are beautiful, powerful and mayb even perfect. These perfect people seem to have all the gifts. Have you ever noticed how the poor, the powerless, the handicaped are never seen in TV ads? Even so-called religious TV programming features perfect-looking people. In such a world, it is hard to discover the gifts of the 'handicapped'

Jesus, on the other hand, was not just concerned with the handicapped of his day. He actually preferred them. He was far more comfortable with the villiage LUNATICS than the religious HYPOCRITES. He loved to talk and listen and eat and drink with the sick, the tax collectors, the poor, th homeless, the sinners, the Gentiles, the deaf and dumb, th handicapped. Notice how Jesus took sight of the deaf man in last sunday's gospel. Notice how he tenderly takes the man, off by himself away from the crowd. Jesus takes him aside shows not ony he cares, but he shows the man, sensivity and respect.

Jesus shows himself to be the messiah, the kind of savior ISAIAH dreamed of and had his people hoped for. Unfortunately, DISCRIMINATION continues to persist even in church, at times when deafness or any other handicap is considered an impediment to the sacraments, as if to be a christian, one has to be a perfect specimen.

Have we abandoned such Discrimination especially in our ATTITUDES towards OTHERS? Do we realised that there is no perfect people either in the pulpit or in the pews? All of us are in a way HANDICAPPED. Only some of our handicaps are more obvious than others. Truely, we're all pilgrims in the church and being a pilgrim in the church is not an impediment. It is rather a reason to celebrate and to give thanks.


'RAIN