I have to admit, the vast majority of my homilies over the past 10 years were crafted from my experiences at St. Francis de Sales School in Toledo, Ohio, where I was ministering since I was ordained… If you want something new every day, enter the classroom!
On one occasion, I was listening to our principal reflecting on the previous evening with his young family. He and his wife had just purchased their first “adult” piece of furniture, a wooden coffee table. They brought it home, put it in their family room, and within a few hours, one of his daughters scratched her name into it. So much for the immaculate, new, coffee table.
Upon hearing this story, one of our veteran teachers shared a similar story. This time, instead of a coffee table, one of her children carved his name into their new, wooden dining table. Having a different perspective because her son is now an adult, she said, “I now run my finger over those scars in the wood, and I think of my son. I love those scars. I love my son.”
When looking at our own scars and imperfections, Saint Francis de Sales speaks to us about acknowledging our own misery. Running a hand over our scars makes us think first of God’s mercy and love.
In a Spiritual Conference, Francis writes:
“Now, the greater our knowledge of our own misery, the more profound will be our confidence in the goodness and mercy of God, for mercy and misery are so closely connected that one cannot be exercised without the other. If God had not created man, He would still indeed have been perfect in goodness, but He would not have been actually merciful, since mercy can only be exercised toward the miserable.”
I love my scars. When I run my hand over them, I know of God’s mercy and love.
May God be praised!
Fr. Joe Newman, OSFS
Provincial
Toledo- Detroit Province
