Deacon Rick Lapierre
There's a story by Walter Wangerin that goes like this. It was early on a Friday morning when I noticed the Ragman walking down the alleys in the poorest part of the city. He was a young man, handsome and strong and his odd cart was filled with clothes bright and new. As he walked along he cried out in a clear, loud voice, "Rags, rags, new rags for old, I'll take your old tired rags!"
I was amazed at this tall muscular man, with eyes that flashed clear and bright and spoke of an intelligence that I could not fathom. Couldn't he find a better job then this?
Soon the Ragman came upon a woman sitting on her back porch, crying loudly into her handkerchief. The Ragman stopped his cart and walked over to the woman, surrounded by trash. "Give me your rag," he said softly, "and I'll give you another." He slipped the handkerchief from her crying eyes and gave her a linen cloth so clean and new that it shone. He began to walk again, pulling his cart and then he did a strange thing. He put her old stained handkerchief to his face, and began to cry. I looked back at the woman he had just left, and she was now without a tear.
I continued to follow the crying Ragman when he came upon a young girl whose head wore a bloody bandage and whose eyes were empty. He reached into his cart and took out a bright yellow bonnet. "Give me your rags," he said, "and I'll give you mine."
The child only gazed at him as he took the bandage from her head, and I gasped in amazement as the wound on her head went with the bandage. He tied the bandage around his head and his head then began to bleed. He placed the bright yellow bonnet on the girl and life once again began to shine in her eyes.
The Ragman walked on, sobbing and bleeding. He walked along and came upon a man with one arm, leaning against a pole and obviously destitute. "Don't you have a job?" the Ragman asked. The man looked up through weary, bloodshot eyes and merely pointed to the empty sleeve in his old tattered coat. "So," the Ragman said with authority, "give me your jacket and I'll give you mine." I gasped in amazement that as the Ragman removed his jacket, his arm remained in it. The man took the jacket and as he put it on could only look at two hands in awe.
The Ragman shuffled on, sobbing, bleeding and pulling the cart with his one arm. He came upon an old man lying in rags and exchanged them for new clothes, become more old and feeble in the process. The pulling of the cart was becoming more and more difficult and I wept at the change in this man, once strong and handsome, now weak and disheveled.
"Where was he going?" I asked myself. He came to a hill where the trash was buried and started to pull his cart up behind him. I wanted to help, but I was afraid and ashamed and quite honestly, confused. He finally reached the brow of the hill overlooking the city, surrounded by garbage. He lay down on a heap of trash and covered himself with an old blanket. I watched as his breathing became more and more labored, almost as if all of the illnesses in the world had become his own. And then with a final gasp, his eyes opened in shock and he died.
I slumped against an old junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope, because I had come to love the Ragman. I sobbed myself to sleep, and continued to sleep through the next day.
It was early on Sunday morning when I was awakened by a violent light. I slowly opened my eyes and as they adjusted to the light, I saw its source. The Ragman stood, folding his blanket. He had two arms and the wound on his head had healed and the rags in his cart that he had exchanged were now bright and shiny and new.
I stood beside him, a sorry figure in my own rags and wounds. "Dress me and make me new", I asked him. Then the Lord dressed me in new rags and I now walk with Him. The Ragman, The Ragman, The Christ!
There are a number of themes in this morning's gospel story: the need for rest, the need for a shepherd, Jesus' heart moved with pity. Each one of these is a powerful thought that an entire homily can be built around. But the line that struck me the most was "they hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them". The commentaries on the gospel tell us that where they journeyed was approximately ten miles from Capernaum and a better translation for this line is "they ran there on foot." Jesus' preaching was so powerful that people ran ten miles just to hear it. Let's face it, would any of us run to Woonsocket on foot to hear someone preach?
My brothers and sisters, I have to confess something. Sometimes I witness things that I don't bring to Jesus, because sometimes my faith in Jesus isn't as strong as my faith in me. Yet, when I am at my most honest, when I am confronted with the issues in my life that I can't control, who else is there. Jesus IS the answer, no matter what the question. Let me give you some examples.
Jesus, the kid down the street drives like an idiot, who does he think he is? And Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Jesus, why is my friend so sick? And Jesus said, "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God."
Jesus, why is there no peace in my family? And Jesus said, "Do you think I have come to establish peace on the earth? Not as the world gives peace, do I give peace!"
Jesus, why don't I have a lot of money like (fill in your favorite wealthy person)? And Jesus said, "Sell what you have and give to the poor, then come follow me."
Jesus, why did my father have to die? And Jesus said, "Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
I may delude myself into thinking that I'm the world's greatest deacon, or EMT, or husband, or father. But it's a lie. In reality I know that I am a wounded, dirty beggar standing beside the Ragman. "Dress me and make me new" I asked Him.
And He has! Every one of us here has been reborn, clothed in Christ by our Baptism. But now what must we do? What must I do? I must make His life my own. I have to see life as Jesus sees it, a gift from God to be nourished and watered, not taken and hidden under a rock. It is in His words that we find the meaning and the answer to life's myriad questions, and it is in following His words and example that we find that special peace that is so elusive to us. Jesus, dress me again and make me new again.
