We human beings are all different. Your mother is not like your father. You are different from your brother John and your sister Frances. At school you have seen Jerome, who comes from the Ivory Coast: his skin is black. In your class there are children who are gifted at math and others at French. There is also Pierina, who has only one arm—she was in a car accident with her father. She suffered greatly. Of course, she cannot play basketball now, but she dances beautifully. You also know Claude, whom Frances invited to her birthday party. He is a bit different from the others. He has a hard time speaking and learning. But even though he is not very good at school, everyone loves him. Because he is so kind and trusting, the other children want to help him. He seems to open the hearts of others.
It is truly sad when people mock Jerome for coming from another country, or Pierina or Claude because they are not like everyone else. The real question is: "Why do some people refuse to accept those who are different?" After all, we know that we are all the same: human beings with hearts made to love and be loved.
Is the true handicap not, then, the refusal to welcome the other—the one who is different? What matters is that God loves each of us exactly as we are.
Yes, God created the sky and the earth and everything in them. When Adam and Eve turned away from God's presence, he withdrew humbly. As a result, death entered the world, and with it came all kinds of fragility in our human nature and in creation. Handicap is not the most important of these, even though we suffer from it. What matters is that God welcomes us as we are, with our gifts, our failings, our weaknesses. Sin is the refusal of the other. Because we are each unique and different, each of us has a gift to offer others. And we need one another.