Reflecting on the first reading from the book of Wisdom during his morning homily today in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis called on the faithful to entrust themselves into the hands of God, like a child does with their father.
“God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made them,” the reading from the book of Wisdom began. “But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it.”
The Holy Father stressed that while all must path through death, it is one thing to pass through this experience with an affiliation with the devil and it is another thing to pass through this experience from the hand of God.
“I like to hear this: ‘We are in the hands of God from the beginning,’ the Pope said. “The Bible explains to us the Creation, using a beautiful image: God who with his hands makes us from mud, from the earth in His image and likeness. It was the hands of God that created us: the craftsman God! Like a craftsman he made us. These hands of the Lord…The hands of God, who has not abandoned us.”
The Holy Father went on to explain that the hands of God, like a father holding his child’s hand, teaches us how to walk on the path of salvation. It is God’s hands that comforts us and caresses us in our darkest moments. These hands, he continued, are the same hands of Christ that were crucified for our sins.
“Jesus, God, carries his wounds: he shows them to the Father. This is the price: the hands of God are wounded hands out of love! And this consoles us very much,” the Pope said. To place oneself in the hands of God, he stressed, is to place ourselves in the most secure place, in the hands of One who loves us very much.
“Let us think of the hands of Jesus, when he touched the sick and healed them,” the Pope said. “They are the hands of God: they heal us! I don’t envision God giving us a slap! I don’t envision it. Reproaching us, yes I can envision that, because He does that. But never, never does He hurt us. Never! He caresses us. Even when he must reproach us, he does it with a caress, because He is a Father.”
Concluding his homily, Pope Francis called on the faithful to contemplate on those hands of God, the wounded hands of Christ that accompany all on the path of life.
