A priest in Venice was suspended for drug addiction. Punishments had brought about no substantial change in him. One evening, while sipping a drink in a bar, someone came and told him that the new Archbishop was waiting for him outside. Ignoring it as a prank, he went on to pour himself another drink when he felt a gentle hand resting on his shoulder—it was Cardinal Giuseppe Roncalli, the Archbishop of Venice.
The Cardinal led him to the nearest church rectory, seated him on a chair, knelt beside, and asked the priest to hear his confession. He refused, saying he was suspended. “As the local Bishop, I withdraw your suspension,” said Roncalli, “can you hear my confession now?” As the Cardinal knelt beside him, saying “Mea culpa,” the young priest’s eyes welled up and tears poured down his cheeks in torrents.
After the absolution, the Cardinal stood and held him close, saying, “This, my son, is what God chose you for.” From the dying embers of total destruction, that night, the young priest discovered himself. Cardinal Roncalli later became Pope John XXIII, now a Saint of the Catholic Church. The priest went on to become a zealous missionary.
For all those leading an unruly life devoid of purpose, there is a hope-filled verse in the Bible: “He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick” (Matthew 12:20). Those who are bruised and broken, Christ can bandage; those who are smoldering and lacking life, Christ will enflame.
When Jesus met her, the Samaritan woman was burning the candle at both ends with self-loathing (John 4). The Savior waits for her at Jacob’s well. As she arrives, tired from the searing heat and scorching hurt of self-loathing, Christ doesn’t abandon her. He enkindles in her the fumy embers of love that had been dormant in her. That blazes into a huge flame, and in its radiance, the whole of Samaria comes running to the Savior.
It is easy to break the bruised and put out the smoldering embers…It takes only a mocking word, a rebuke, a look that sparks self-hatred. But to share a loving word, a comforting gesture that says “it’s alright,” or a reassuring look that says it’s possible to regain all that is lost…Such efforts can rekindle the almost snuffed-out wick in anyone’s life. When we ready ourselves to give these, we become Christ-like. How many suffering lives do a single glance around reveal?
Are you willing to listen to someone who is feeling fiercely lonely? Can you hold close a person wallowing in a destructive cycle of self-incrimination over a past wrong and console them with a kind word? Can you find time to visit a lonely soul who has been left to atone for a past sin with years in prison? Surely, you will rekindle the smoky wick in them.
The Book of Sirach reminds us: “If you blow on a spark, it will glow; if you spit on it, it will be put out, yet both come out of your mouth” (28:12).
O Lord, fill me with the grace to bind and heal the bruised and reignite the dying embers, and thus grant that I may grow towards Christ. Amen.
