Apollo Stole My Heart

 

Turning our deep wounds into our great strengths

11/18/2025

Luke 19:1-10 At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about my dog, Apollo. They either want to express their sympathy about his death or inquire when I might adopt a new dog. And every time they do the pain of losing him and the sad circumstances surrounding his death all come flooding back and break my heart. I was at a personnel board meeting a few weeks ago and Apollo came up in conversation. Bishop Taylor captured my feelings perfectly, saying: “They steal your heart.”

But I have noticed a beautiful blessing in carrying this burden of Apollo’s suffering and death: I feel greater sympathy and compassion for other people’s suffering and loss. You have heard the old adage: “It takes one to know one,” meaning one’s own wounds create a closeness with others’ pains and problems. The great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, called this the phenomenon of “the wounded healer.”

That is, a psychoanalyst is compelled to treat patients because the psychoanalyst himself is wounded. By the way, I don’t if you have heard this statistic before, but 82% of applied psychology graduate students and faculty in the U.S. and Canda experienced mental health conditions at some point in their lives.

In other words, wounds are not necessarily a weakness but in fact a sign of strength and even a particular power of healing. That is, instead of ignoring people who ask about Apollo or burying my feelings, I try to keep that wound alive and fresh so I can help and heal others who suffer. Apollo may have stolen my heart, but he has given me a new heart, a wounded but more loving heart.

In the gospel today we hear about a man whose particular weakness becomes the occasion for his greatest blessing. Luke notes that Zacchaeus was “short in stature” so he climbs a sycamore tree to see Christ, who in turn spots him perched like a bird on a branch. And Jesus says glorious words of salvation: “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”

Luke also notes importantly that Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector and a wealthy man. Now, why was that detail important? Well, I wonder if sometimes Zacchaeus saw his small size as a crutch and a cross. And perhaps he suffered from the Napoleon Complex: how short people feel inferior and so need to dominate others in order to assert their superiority.

But Jesus tells him to “come down” and stop pretending to be great perched on a tree, and helps him not run from his special wound and weakness – his diminutive size – but to embrace it. Why? So he could feel closer to others who suffer. Perhaps Zacchaeus felt like a wounded healer when he said: “Behold, half my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor.” In other words, don’t bury this burden of your shortness but embrace it as a source of deep compassion for others who suffer. Why? Because “it takes one to know one.”

My friends, sooner or later we all suffer some kind of wound or weakness: the death of a beloved dog, the loss of a family or friend, perhaps a divorce and failed marriage, or the loss of a job, maybe you move to another city or state and lose your community. You may be afflicted with some debilitating disease. And eventually old age catches up with all of us and we lose our physical strength and our mental acuity. And you may react like I did with Apollo’s death: ignore it, bury it, and forget about it. We don’t want anyone to steal our hearts again.

But perhaps the point of life is not simply to protect ourselves from pain. Instead, maybe that pain of loss and grief will teach us a deeper kind of love and compassion for others who hurt? In other words, maybe our hearts were made to be stolen – like Apollo stole my heart – so that our old hearts can be replaced with new hearts, better hearts, more tender and caring hearts.

Every morning when Apollo was alive we had a specific route that we walked around the rectory, school, and church. I prayed my rosary, and Apollo sniffed around for the perfect place to poop. We both dutifully did our respective morning chores. Now, every morning I still walk that same specific route but now I smile at the cats who are no longer afraid of me. Did you see what happened? Apollo stole my heart and took it to heaven, and left me a better heart to love those who suffer, even stray cats.

Praised be Jesus Christ!