GET UP AND COME TO THE CENTER

 

Paolo Cugini

 

 

He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come here to the center!” (Mk 3:2).

Hear, O people, the word that resounds in the desert of the ages: in a century where the powerful raise walls and human hearts have turned to stone, expelling the weak and trampling the small, arises He who overturns the thrones of the world. Behold, Emmanuel walks through the darkness of exclusion and, with a sovereign gesture, calls to himself those whom history has rejected as outcast.

"Come to the center!" cries the Spirit. And the forgotten, the outcast, those torn apart by the injustices of the centuries will no longer be on the margins, but will become the cornerstone of the New Temple. This is the fulfilled prophecy: the community that bears the Name of the Risen One will be recognized by this sign alone: ​​if in its fold the last have become the first, if the cry of the poor has become the song of the assembly. But know, O children of light, that this sacred space is not a gift of the flesh, but the fruit of a fire that must burn deep within: the conversion of the heart. Only those who accept dying to themselves will see the birth of a community that is a living body and not a cold institution.

Listen to the voice crying out in the sanctuary of History, for a great mystery is revealed to you: turn your gaze to the Scriptures and observe the footsteps of the Risen One. In every Easter theophany, when the doors are closed in fear and the hearts of the apostles are gripped by mourning, He does not come from the sides, He does not occupy a corner, He does not blend into the crowd. He appears at the Center. It is written and it is fulfilled: Christ, who has conquered death, stands as the axis of the world, the beating heart of the assembly, the pivot around which every redeemed life revolves. But understand, O seeker of the Mystery, the weight of this position: that Center is not a throne of human glory, but the space that the world had declared empty. Here is the prophecy that shakes the foundations of your temples: He who was rejected by the builders, He who was expelled outside the city walls as a curse, He who is the Outcast par excellence, now claims the Central Place. Therefore, know this with certainty: every time you, in a gesture of bold conversion, take the outcast, the derelict, the rejected by society and place them in the midst of your community, you are not performing an act of mere philanthropy. You are celebrating Easter! The outcast who occupies the center is the sacramental and mysterious sign of the Risen One among you. It is the wounded flesh of the excluded that reveals the glory of the Living One. Where the world digs abysses of separation, the community of the Kingdom places the altar of welcome; where the world relegates to shadows, the Truth places the lamp. Do not seek the Mystery in the heights of the heavens or in the abstractions of the mind: He has hidden in the face of the voiceless. When the least of the earth sits in the heart of your gathering, then and only then will you be able to cry out:  "The Lord is truly risen!" For His presence is manifested not in the power that dominates, but in the Center occupied by the one who, for the world, was not even meant to exist.

Yet, beware: this lifestyle will be your condemnation before the courts of the earth. You will be a sign of contradiction, a sword dividing the shadow from the light. As the Master was persecuted, so the hatred of the world will fall upon you, for the world does not tolerate those who expose the lies of its idols. He foretold this in the supreme hour of sacrifice:  "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before you"  (Jn 15:18-21). The world, which masks itself with peace and cloaks itself in false humility, hides within itself a dragon of radical intolerance. It applauds only those who bow to its logic of power. But you, by placing the poor at the center, hurl the Truth of the Mystery against the pride of the ages, and the world will tremble with rage.

Do not fear, then, if the mire of slander and the iron of persecution mark your history. A community is truly evangelical only when it bears the wounds of its Lord. Remain steadfast under the weight of this hatred, without looking back, without seeking escape into the lures of the world. Your challenge is the perseverance of daily martyrdom, the docility of those who, each morning, incline their ears to listen to the Word, the only rock that does not crumble as the world passes by.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear: the glory of God shines on the face of the outcast, and in that face resides the final judgment of the earth.