Few moments have shaken my resolve to be Catholic as much as the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report released last year. The scandal and crimes committed by priests, the silence...the victims. It is hard to take in. As Catholics, we care deeply about people! And as my wife once told me: “those who love deeply, grieve deeply.” In light of what’s happened, we are all grieving deeply for those harmed by deceit and abuse. Still wrestling with this heartache and horror, I want to take a moment to share a few thoughts:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).
The Catholic Church is not holy because we are holy. The Church is holy because Jesus is holy. When I look at the cross, I see a Savior put to death by the very people He came to save. I see that love, despite evil all around, brings light into the darkness.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32). We are all sick. The Church needs healing. The world needs healing. And only Jesus has the cure. No...He is the cure. But it’s only when you and I recognize our own brokenness that true healing can take place. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote, “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Searching the hearts of men and women, searching the whole world, I imagine Jesus finding sin in our hearts, and instead of rejecting us as we deserve - He sees the pain our sin causes us and longs to heal us - each of us - you...me.
Maybe today, more than any other day, we can choose to be a light despite the darkness. When we find evil where it should never be found, let’s do something otherworldly - heavenly - about it. It only takes one person to be the difference between Judas and Peter. Repent, abide with Jesus, hold fast. Because “all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle” (St. Francis of Assisi).
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.