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VATICAN CITY REMARKS by Mary Jane Owen Jubilee Day for Persons with Disabilities December 3, 2000 As the voice of the commitment to welcome and justice of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States, we send our love and concern to the millions of our brothers and sisters around the globe. Our shared disabilities are the normal and expected outcome of the risk, stress and strains of the living process itself; for God places the gift of life into frail and vulnerable bodies. Our differences must be acknowledged, accepted, addressed and celebrated by our Church. God does not place the gift of life in high impact plastic. We are not manufactured like Ken and Barbie dolls, uniform and unflawed. We are each created uniquely different, out of the love between a man and a woman, to illustrate some essential aspect of the complexity of our Heavenly Father. And our intertwining threads of abilities, disabilities; gifts and needs, weave the strongest social fabric. Each of us is essential as we gather together to build the Body of Christ on earth. We, the disabled people of the Church, must illustrate and teach the people of Christ’s Church the power of the powerless; the strength of our shared vulnerability; the wisdom of the concrete minded; the beauty to be glimpsed beyond sight, the healing words not spoken aloud. We can do these things with the aid of our Holy Father; our Heavenly Father; His Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us get on with our mission. |
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