"We Are Deeply Hurt People"

"We Are Deeply Hurt People"

If there’s one teaching of the Church that I’ve grown to appreciate, it’s the concept of Original Sin. I have less and less doubt that all of us are infected with some kind of tragic flaw, that all of us are deeply wounded at the core.

I never really used to think that way. I came out of the very optimistic, Chardinian worldview. Now after seven years building community, I’ve seen too many jolly, fine, together people come on the scene and think they were perfect people. After three months, I’d see they’re just like all the rest of us. There hasn’t been an exception in seven years.

We all are deeply hurt people, and we’ve all been infected. People are not whole and yet they constantly long for holiness, for wholeness. That’s why Jesus’ call to holiness is paralleled by the healing ministry. In fact, you could say that’s almost all Jesus does: preach and heal, preach and heal, preach and heal. For the mature ones, the preaching is already healing and the healing is its own sermon.

from The Price of Peoplehood by Richard Rohr