Jesus left Tyrenian territory and returned by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee into the district of the ten cities.l Some people brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged Him to lay his hands on him. Jesus took him off by himself, away from the crowd, He put his finger into the man's ears, and spitting, touched his tongue. Then He looked up to Heaven and emitted a groan. He said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be healed." At once the man's ears were opened. He was freed of the impediment and began to speak plainly. Then He enjoined them strictly not to tell anyone, but the more He ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. Their amazement went beyond all bounds. "He has done everything well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak." (Mark 7:31-37)

I remembered that story, that incident, many years later, when I as abbot had a monk come in and say to me, "You know, Fr. Abbot, my mother is seriously ill in hospital, and I know that you are going to the abbot's meeting on Monday. I know perfectly well that if necessity arose the prior could give me permission to go, but I would like to ask you for the permission. She is seriously ill, but we don't think it is critical, and I'm not sure whether I should go or not go." I looked at the monk and I said, "My dear man, when you are in doubt, the only answer is, Go. Don't wait too long. Don't wait until it's too late for you."

 It so happens that the monk went, and about two or three days after he got there, his mother died. When I returned from the meeting, I got a telephone call from him, and he said, "Fr. Abbot, my father is now in the hospital. It isn't very serious, we can't understand what it is, but would you mind if I stay a few more days, or even a week or so?" I said, "Brother, your classes are all covered; it's toward the end of the semester. Stay until the end of the semester." And in two weeks, maybe three, his father also died. An only child.

All this past week I've been thinking about those two incidents, those two true life stories. And while I've been thinking about them I've been thinking about a book written several years ago by a Dutch theologian, Fr. Nouwen, the title of which is The Wounded Healer, that those who can truly heal are themselves wounded. You know when you come right down to it in this life, there are no perfect human beings, save the Blessed Mother and our lord Jesus Christ. There are people who have degrees of holiness, there are people who are striving in their own individual ways, sometimes mysteries to us, but there are no perfect human beings. There don't have to be perfect human beings. Perfection is not a quality that God looks for in human beings in this world. The hope to become perfect, the endeavor, the striving to become perfect, that's what God looks for. And when you think about it, the very reason that the Son of God became incarnate and shared our wounded nature--that's the very reason that Jesus came into the world. Not that he might make us perfect in this world, but that he might give us the means, through the Sacraments, through grace, through prayer, that we can strive to become perfect. And the only unpardonable sin is when one simply turns one's back to God's grace.

 And I've been thinking of that during this week and I've been asking myself a couple of questions this week. In the event of the death of these two women, who were known around the world, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa--seemingly on the opposite ends of the stick, certainly on the opposite ends of the social scale--what lessons are we to take from these two deaths, from these two lives? First of all, I think there are some very practical, human, down-to-earth lessons, particularly in the case of one of them. And they are rather mundane lessons, ones that we hear every day. And the first lesson is, wear your seat belt. A very practical lesson, but one that comes home very poignantly when we realize that the one person out of the four in that car who is alive today wore his seat belt. The other three did not. A second lesson that we can learn out of that event is to be very careful about driving and drinking. Be very careful about any chemical substance and driving or operating any kind of machinery. Be very careful about not riding with someone who is under the influence of chemical substances and is the driver of the car.

 A third lesson that we can learn, a practical human lesson, is that we all have to come to the point of death. Immortality is not something that we will enjoy in this world. All of us have to go through death. It is the event of life, the culminating event of life as we know it here on earth. Several years ago I remember when my mother was dying and my father had a very difficult time accepting that, and he would come and stand at her deathbed, the tears pouring down his cheeks, and he would say to my mother, chiding her, haranguing her, "My dear wife, you are a very strong woman. If you would just decide you're not going to die, you won't die!" And my mother would look at him as only a wife or a mother can look at someone and she said, "Enough! What in the hell do you think life is all about? This is what life is about; this is what life leads to, has to lead to, so just be quiet, George. I want no more of your tears; I want no more of your chiding me. This all of us have to go through."

 But there are other lessons we can learn from the events of this last week, more spiritual, perhaps even more important than those mundane lessons. And I think the first of these is vulnerability. You know, we come into this world vulnerable, because we all have sin. We come into this world vulnerable because we're all prone to the possibility of diseases, of sicknesses, of disappointments. We are all vulnerable because we are wounded in some way or we wound others in some way. The prophet Jeremiah says, "What are these wounds that I have received in the house of my brothers?" And the psalmist says, "If these wounds came from an enemy, I could bear them. But to be the wounds inflicted by my own family, by my own brother, that becomes extremely difficult." So we all have this quality of vulnerability, and we have to not bemoan the fact that we are vulnerable; we have to not try to escape the fact that we are vulnerable, but we have to use it, we have to us it in a positive way. We have to use it to grow, to do good for others through the fact that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, by the fact that by being human we are vulnerable.

Another thing that we can learn is compassion. And compassion simply means to suffer with, to suffer for another person. And of course a third lesson we can learn is an instinctive respect for the beauty of every person, of every living thing, deep respect for people. Never putting them down, never disdaining them because they are not of our own social position or our own education. The greatest healer, and yet the most wounded healer was Jesus. He became in His humanity very vulnerable, and yet very compassionate, and yet what an instinctive respect for the dignity of every human creature, of every created thing. Because He had compassion, because He was able to suffer with and for people, because He made himself and was vulnerable in His humanity, touching unclean persons, touching sinners, associating sinners even to the point of dying on the cross and allowing himself to be most vulnerable in offering His life for our life. In His wounded humanity He was able to redeem every single one of us and the world itself. And if He had not had that wounded, vulnerable, compassionate humanity, He could not have redeemed us. He simply could not have redeemed us. He had such respect for all human beings, for all created things.

 And I guess the greatest lesson that we learn from these two deaths, these two lives, is that to the extent that we are vulnerable, to the extent that we are compassionate, to the extent that we have respect for one another beginning in our immediate families; to the extent that we become and are wounded healers, to that extent it is really Jesus in us and through us who heals, who touches people. And you might say, "I don't like the life of one, but I admire the life of the other." And all I can think of is something that the disciples said to Jesus one day. "Lord, we saw someone giving a glass of water in your name, but he was not of our company, so we stopped him." And Jesus replied, "He who is not against me is for me." In a dim way perhaps, one of these women saw in a princess vulnerability, compassion, and the innate respect she had for people. In Mother Teresa perhaps they saw it more openly. But do they see it in you, do they see it in me? Do they see Christ acting in my vulnerability, my compassion, my respect for people? Do they see Christ in your vulnerability, your compassion, your respect? When you come right down to it, that's what discipleship is all about.