The Deacon's Bench
A deacon friend sent me his homily for today. It’s extraordinary and, I think, deserves a wider audience. I post it here with his permission. I hope it will resonate with many.
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My good friend, Father Hilarion has a saying that goes like this…
Everyone who comes into your life is a blessing.
Some are a blessing when they arrive.
And some are a blessing when they leave.
We all, touch the lives of others….
And we are all touched by those who come in contact with us each day.
For better or worse……For good or for evil.
We are all imperfect.
We are all wounded.
There are events, or things, or people in all of our lives, who have left us with a scar…or perhaps an open wound.
And being someone who is ordained makes me no different.
I grew up in a time when we were taught to have a great respect for people in our culture and in our church, who were people in authority.
People like parents and family members…..
civic officials, teachers, coaches, religious brothers and sisters and priests….
Who all represented to us, all the things that were good about our society.
Everything that was good about our Church.
And I, like so many others, was at one point, betrayed by someone who I thought I could trust.
And I was wounded…
Deeply wounded.
And for many years, I either pretended that this betrayal….that act….didn’t happen
Or didn’t matter…
And I walked through life, piling layer upon layer of protection over that wound in the effort to protect myself…
Until I reached a time, when I could no longer live…
I could no longer function…
When I began to question the value of even staying alive…..
And that’s when I knew it was time to reach out.
To confront the wound, and to seek healing.
To confront the person who wounded me….
And the people in authority over that person….
To find peace, both emotionally and spiritually.
And to seek healing and reconciliation in the sacrament of Reconciliation.
To seek forgiveness for any part that I had in being a victim…
So that I could too, forgive myself….
And so I could also receive the grace and the courage to forgive the person who wounded me.
And finally lay that final layer of healing over the scar that I had covered my wound with.
So that I can be whole.
So that I can be the person that God was calling me to be.
Brothers and sisters, we are all pearls…
We are all the pearl of great price that Jesus talks about in the Gospel today.
Pearls are beautiful things.
Aren’t they.
They’re perfect because they are imperfect.
Each one is a little different from any other pearl.
Pearls are created when some foreign body…
Some piece of sand or some other objectionable material gets into the oyster itself….
And the oyster’s immune system, in an attempt to protect itself covers the irritant over….
And as the oyster grows, adds layer upon layer upon layer over this hurtful, irritating piece of material.
As each oyster….suffers just a bit differently in creating this pearl, so too do our suffering differ from every other person.
And, the healing from our wounded-ness,
through the love of Christ,
through grace,
through reconciliation,
and through our forgiveness of others….
and perhaps….and most importantly….our own forgiveness of ourselves…..
makes us into pearls of great price.
Beautiful and precious in the eyes of our God.
Who, as revealed in our Gospel today, in the icon of the merchant in search of fine pearls…..
Who goes and sells everything….
So that he may possess that pearl of great price.
Our Lord and Saviour
Who
Sold everything.
Gave everything…
Including his own life, on the cross,
So that he could possess us…..he could redeem us.
His brothers and sisters.
His disciples and his followers
With Him as our Lord and Saviour..
And with us…as his body here on earth.
Let’s pray, brothers and sisters, that we seek and receive the grace to be the pearls that God calls us to be.
That we seek healing and forgiveness for our wounded-ness.
As we care for, heal, and forgive others in His name.
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