For his sixth meditation before Pope Francis and the Roman Curia, Father Giulio Michelini reflected on Jesus’ trial and Pilate’s wife (Matthew 27:11-26). The meditation was written by spouses, Mariateresa Zattoni and Gilberto Gillini, with whom the Franciscan collaborates regularly.
The exegesis of Holy Scripture is not the prerogative of the consecrated and of theologians, underscored the preacher in his intervention, summarized by Vatican Radio in Italian: couples and families must also participate in it.
On the fourth day of the Retreat at the House of the Divine Master at Ariccia, south of Rome, Father Michelini reflected on the choice given to Pontius Pilate: Jesus or Barabbas. An episode that he compared to William Styron’s novel “Sophie’s Choice,” where a young mother in a Nazi camp is forced to choose which of her two children will be put to death. As in the novel, the responsibility of the untenable decision to choose between two men, goes back to the one who is obliged to choose, namely, the Roman Prefect, and not the crowd, he said.
In their meditation, read by the preacher, the two spouses noted that it was the voice of a woman, which came to interrupt that masculine power game, which was the complicity between the Chief Priest and Pilate.
They also referred to the dreams of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, which represent “God’s dream”: the salvation of His Son. However, if Joseph and the Magi understood what they had to do, Pilate did not listen to his wife’s voice, he did not listen to dreams, he just sought to keep his power.
