The Gospel story of the paralyzed man—a terrible word that ought to be changed—belongs to all of us (Mark 2:1). As we know, some men carry a sick man on his mat to bring him before Jesus. To do this, they open the roof of the house and lower him through it. It's a beautiful image of faith, even if it seems odd that the crowd didn't move aside. The arrival of this man on his mat must have touched the heart of the crowd somehow.
One day at a diaconal ordination in Oise, I was thinking about these men who had feared nothing, and about our churches—forever inaccessible to wheelchairs. I remembered a parishioner who had advised me to position myself near a pillar at the back so I wouldn't "cause too much trouble" with my wheelchair. Two thousand years of hearing this Gospel passage, and still we must endure the barrier of stairs!
In the solemn procession, a boy with Down syndrome carried a basket of grapes. Everything seemed ordered like a military parade. The celebration promised to be glacial, official, sad. Then, suddenly, fifty meters from the altar, the young altar boy dropped the basket. Hundreds of grapes scattered across the floor.
Dozens of parishioners knelt without making a drama of it and began to laugh. Joy returned instantly. Strangers exchanged knowing smiles as they gathered the purple grapes. The celebration became a true feast. And who do we thank for this? This honest story carries a meaning so deep it took me time to understand what God meant to tell us through these two episodes. It is not our love of order that makes us beautiful, but a certain disorder that reveals fraternity.
The paralyzed man reveals to his bearers their own fraternity. The grape-gatherers discover their own humanity. And what is fragile restores communion of hearts, makes listening human again, gives us back our humanity. I have often told myself that the unexpected speaks to us of God and of ourselves, and I wait for these signs in every celebration. I wait for the unforeseen stumble, the sudden laughter, and the presence of a handicapped child is a blessing.
With joy I said to myself: "Ah! If something happens, it's Jesus making us laugh."
Jean-Christophe Parisot
from Ombres et Lumiere no. 192