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March 24, 2018“Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” The guards also took him over and beat him.” (Mk 14:62)
This kind of things happens to people every day: to poor people, to the vulnerable, to children. Children do this to children. Something in us is amiss. We insist on portraying violence in novels and movies and conjuring with it in video games, as if this were what it means to be an “Adult.” So violence becomes a staple of our fantasy life. How far could I go? Could I knock someone senseless? Draw blood? Kill?
But to see a person being spat upon, mocked and beaten: someone real, someone we know, someone we love; this is no longer titillating but sickening. A real person of heart and mind and flesh, shamed, demeaned and crushed. And we are ashamed to look. We turn our faces away from such a sight, because it tears at the heart. We who watch are also shamed, demeaned and crushed. We would rather not be. And so we shun those who suffer and avoid them. They are a burden to us, and we wish they would go away.
“He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.” (Is 53:3)
