He Took My Shame - Finding Healing and Dignity Through Christ and St. André Bessette

For every heart that has felt humiliated, rejected, or unseen — His mercy still meets you there.

Shame. Rejection. Silence.

I was born out of wedlock. My extended family refused to welcome me. I was bullied, dismissed, and pushed aside. Inside my home, things were no easier. My parents carried wounds of their own — unhealed traumas they did not understand. Though my body was clothed and fed, my heart rarely felt seen or cherished.

I was a clumsy child, often breaking things and making careless mistakes. My father called me “666,” and my mother followed his lead. They were repeating what they had learned — passing down pain they never had the chance to name. They, too, were shaped by their own developmental trauma. They didn’t know better.

The shame they placed on me became not just something I felt, but something I was. My inner voice was not I feel ashamed, but I am shame.

When I pray the Rosary Sorrowful Mysteries — I think of Jesus, shamed and humiliated before the crowd. He bore the ridicule, the abandonment, the stripping of His dignity. He carried my shame to the Cross and transformed it through His love.

In His quiet humility, I see the life of St. André Bessette. Frail and uneducated, he was rejected by his religious community and sent away as “unfit.” Yet God hid holiness in his littleness. As a simple doorkeeper, Brother André greeted each visitor with gentleness and prayer. The same humility that others scorned became the doorway of grace — thousands found healing through his faith in St. Joseph and his steadfast love for Christ.

St. André reminds me that God rewrites the names the world gives us. Where others saw useless, God saw beloved. Where the world mocked, God anointed.His life whispers to my own: holiness often begins in humiliation; miracles unfold through endurance and love.

When I feel unworthy or unseen, I remember that Christ has already carried my shame.And like St. André Bessette, I want to become a quiet doorway of mercy — a place where others might glimpse the tenderness of God.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, You who bore every insult and humiliation, take the shame that still clings to my heart. Cover what is wounded in me with Your compassion, and teach me to meet others with the gentleness You have shown me.

Through the prayers of St. André Bessette, make my life a humble doorway of mercy, where others may find rest in Your love.

Amen.

“For the Lord takes pleasure in His people;

He adorns the humble with victory.”

— Psalm 149:4