When I have time to watch TV, one of my favorite shows is a particular home remodeling show. The hosts help clients decide on a home which will then be remodeled from frumpy to fabulous. One of the hosts routinely asks the question, “Are you ready to take on a fixer-upper?”
I’ve heard her say it a hundred times, but today, when she said it, I heard her challenge in terms of taking on a person, not a house, who needed some tender loving care, and, perhaps, a demo day. While it is often said you can’t fix people, we can certainly help them try to fix themselves.
I was reminded that fixer-uppers were Jesus’ specialty.
Jesus was known as a friend to sinners, a derisive term he earned from his opponents. But he was fine with it, because it was true. Jesus came to seek and save the sinner, knowing that most often behind the sin is a wound.
I have written it before and I will write it again. Woundedness is a condition that affects the heart and health of both personal and community life.
Wounded people run our schools and parish ministries, sit in our classrooms, stand on the altar, celebrate the Sacraments and answer the office phones. People who grieve the death of a loved one, the failure of a marriage or the loss of a job fill the pews every Sunday.
Our children come to school and religious education programs struggling with the pain of broken families and broken systems, often falsely believing they are somehow responsible for it all. These children grow up into broken adults.
But Jesus sees in them what he saw in Zacchaeus, the notorious tax collector; the Samaritan woman at the well; the woman caught in adultery; the sinful woman who came to anoint Jesus with expensive oils and wipe his feet with her hair.
Jesus shared many meals with those who needed companionship and a new perspective; he healed those who were sick, in body and mind; he forgave those who were repentant of their bad decisions, often very bad decisions, pointing out that those who are forgiven much, love much.
We may not be able to heal the stick or raise the dead, but we can make a difference by following Jesus’ example in one powerful practice – being present.
Writing in his book ,The Gift of Peace, completed during the last few months of his life, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, reflected, “Somehow, when you make . . . eye contact, when you convince people that you really care and that, even if hundreds of others are around, at that particular moment they are the only ones that count – then you establish a new relationship. . . . They sense that somehow you truly care about them and that, more importantly, you have somehow mediated the love, mercy and compassion of the Lord.”
And that is how you take on a fixer-upper.
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.