As the saying goes, “to the pure eye, everything is pure”. The one who has clear eyes, sees clearly; but the one who has hazy eyesight, sees just a mist; and he whose eyes are covered by a crust, only sees dimly.

In the gospel story about the woman caught committing adultery (Jn 8:1-11) Jesus is telling us to replace our spectacles to be able  to see things around us better. Jesus is telling us to clean our eyes, to remove the crust from them, so we can see clearly. The gospel story teaches us how to see better. All of us, including myself, need to take Jesus’s advice seriously.

In this gospel story we have the Jews and Christ: both of whom were looking at a woman. But how different is their vision!

The Jews were seeing a prostitute, an adulteress caught in the act: and so she not only deserved to be condemned but her lot was capital punishment, since according to the law of Moses, she had to be stoned to death. In their eyes she was something expired, something without value, fit only to be thrown away.

Even the way they saw the law was a misty one. Their interpretation of the law was too narrow, formal and rigid. In their view the law was there to choke, subjugate and cause hurt. They followed the letter of the law and they did not care about the person concerned. We can apply to their case the words of Cicero: Summum ius summa inuria – the law applied too strictly leads to injustice. For these Jews the law was dearer than justice; they loved the law but they forgot about love.

But Christ’s vision is very different from that of these Jews. Christ calls the person in front of him neither an adulteress nor a prostitute; instead he calls her “woman”. He uses the same word with which he addressed his mother at the marriage in Cana and when he was nailed to the cross.

Jesus does not identify the person with their mistake. Beyond all our complexity, for Jesus, man is always man, with his dignity. Even the way in which Jesus regards the law is different. Jesus invites man to love. Driven by love, a sincere person will, through the possibilities open to him, seek to really love. In this process the law is a necessary guide helping him to be free.

Before talking, Jesus was seat­ed, teaching the people (v. 8). The fact that he was seated shows that Jesus was not only a teacher but also a judge. The evangelist re­marks twice that Jesus bent down to the ground. He got off his seat and bent to the ground so that he would not look down on the woman (a superior and authoritarian attitude); instead he looks up at her (a respectful attitude).

Jesus changes the whole pers­pective. Looking down, one be­holds in a certain way, but looking up, one sees thing differently. Bent to the ground, Jesus does not behold a condemned person or a person who has made a mistake that will ruin her life; instead he sees a person who, in spite of her mistake, has the potential and the positive energy required to be filled with trust, to leave her past behind her and to start a new life.

And how I wish that our society would change the way it looks at your house and at you!

Jesus starts to write in the dust with his finger. Some people see a similarity between this action and the one when God wrote with his finger the law that he gave to Moses (Ez 31:18). Just as on Mount Sinai God wrote the law twice on the stone tablets (Ez 32:15; 34:1) likewise in this case Jesus writes twice in the dust with his finger.

In doing so, Jesus is inviting the Jews to have a fresh look at the law. In Moses’ time this law was written on tablets of stone but now it is written in the dust, out of which man is made – that is why it is a law written in man’s heart. The fact that Jesus is writing at the woman’s feet means that man was not made for the law but the law was made for man: “The Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27).

So here Jesus is writing a new law, the law of love – this is a law coming not from above in order to crush man but it is a law whose purpose is to serve as a means for man to grow in maturity and to be really free. It is a law in the service of man. Seen in this light the law is not a burden but a means to help man discern God’s will for him.

In this context I would like to pray to Our Lady to help us change our spectacles so we can see better.

First of all it is worth changing the way we see ourselves. If necessary, we should adjust the way we judge ourselves. It often happens that it is not only society that does not forgive us, but we too do not forgive ourselves, so that we keep bearing heavy weights for months, if not for years. Let us change our perspective and let us have faith that in spite of our weakness, God who loves us has regaled us with many resources – He has given us many qualities and talents which we sometimes keep buried within ourselves.

It is also opportune to change the way we regard the house where you live (the Correctional Facility at Corradino). More than being an institution for punishment, this facility is a house for formation and rehabilitation. In some cases this house represents the contribution of society to make up for what it omitted to do when you were still being brought up to become honest citi­zens; to make good for the bad examples you had in the course of your adolescence.

We should also change somewhat the way we regard the regu­lations in operation in your house. These regulations are not meant to humiliate us and to break our spirit, but to help us learn to appreciate our own life and that of others; they are not meant to curtail our freedom but to help us learn how to use our freedom better.

And how I wish that our socie­ty would change the way it looks at your house and at you! Sometimes you would have finished your term, but the world keeps looking at you through foggy eyes. Admittedly the damage one would have wrought has to be compensated for. But there are some who are never satisfied and continue to thirst for the blood of a person who would have made a mistake.

I invite the whole of society to think about Christ’s behaviour with the woman who made a mistake. Christ stoops down to her feet. Christ bows before those who are humiliated, defenceless, judged and condemned. He stoops lower than them in order to help them rise up. This should be the attitude of society with people like you.

I know that what I am proposing is no easy matter; but I entrust all this to the loving care of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu. Mary sympathises with us because her son too was imprisoned and was condemned to capital punishment. John too, to whom, from the cross, Jesus entrusted his mother to take home with him, he too experienced prison (Acts 4:3).

If Jesus beholds man in a new light, Mary too has a maternal gaze, and like every mother she is very sensitive to, and mindful of, the needs of her children. I am convinced that like Jesus, Mary is telling us: Get up and stand firm, fill yourselves with hope, because the future beckons you.

Mario Grech is Bishop of Gozo.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece