I read a story of a school teacher who was assigned to visit children in a large city hospital who received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child.
The teacher took the boy's name and room number, and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, "We're studying nouns and adverbs in this class now. I'd be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn't fall behind the others."
It wasn't until the visiting teacher got outside the boy's room that she realized that it was located in the hospital's burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain.
The teacher felt that she couldn't just turn around and walk out. And so she stammered awkwardly, "I'm the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs." This boy was in so much pain that he barely responded. The young teacher stumbled through his English lesson, ashamed at putting him through such a senseless exercise.
The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" Before the teacher could finish her outburst of apologies, the nurse interrupted her: "You don't understand. We've been very worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He's fighting back; he's responding to treatment. It's as if he has decided to live."
The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw the teacher. It all changed when he came to a simple realization. With joyful tears, the boy said: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a boy, who was dying, would they?"
This story invites us to celebrate the gift of life even when all we seem to see around us is pain and disappointment and brokenness. It shows us that on the other side of pain, there is resurrection. It reminds us of what is possible whenever there is hope. Let us be people who live as fully as God has intended us to live. Let us believe and live the Resurrection.
Happy Easter,
Fr. Chuck
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Hello Friends,
After Hurricane Katrina several TV preachers got in their pulpits and said that the reason that the storm devastated New Orleans was because of the decadence that goes on there. A famous evangelist also said the same thing about the horrific destruction that we’ve recently witnessed in Port au Prince. People blame God for cancer, wars, accidents, divorces and all sorts of silly things. In this weekend’s gospel we hear Jesus’ response to some deadly occurrences of His day.
Apparently, folks in Jesus’ time liked to blame God for tragedies as well as we do. They approached Him with questions about two recent deadly incidents that they were concerned about. Pontius Pilate and the Romans had killed some Galileans and a tower had fallen in Siloam near Jerusalem and eighteen more Jews had died. The response from the faithful disciples was, “Why would God do such things to us?”
Jesus’ answer was both assuring and challenging to His listeners. First He tells them that both sinners and saints die. We all have accidents. We all can be the victims of disease, violence, accidents, and tragedies. More importantly, God doesn’t pick on sinners any more than He picks on saints. Then Jesus challenges His audience to be prepared for their own death by repenting NOW for their sins.
Since we don’t know the when the axe will fall for us, Jesus calls His listeners then and us now to take the necessary steps in our own lives to be in the right relationship with God and our neighbor. We cannot guarantee that when we wake up in the morning, we will see the sunset. Jesus calls us to continue to be prepared.
Finally, I have two requests. I will be at my favorite place in the world this week on retreat. From Sunday afternoon until Friday evening I will be making my yearly retreat at Gethsemani. Please keep me in your prayers during this time. Lastly, you may have noticed that my hair is getting very wooly these days. I will be shaving it all off on St. Patrick’s Day to benefit research into cancers that effect children. Several other parishioners will be doing the same thing at other occasions in the next couple of weeks. Whether you contribute for them or me does not really matter, but please contribute so that we can all do a little part in keeping kids from suffering. If you’d like to contribute online, my link is www.stbaldricks.org/participant/frchuck. You may also give cash or checks to any of us participants in person. Write the checks to St. Baldrick’s Foundation for “haircut”. Thanks for any help you can give.
paz,
Fr. Chuck
After Hurricane Katrina several TV preachers got in their pulpits and said that the reason that the storm devastated New Orleans was because of the decadence that goes on there. A famous evangelist also said the same thing about the horrific destruction that we’ve recently witnessed in Port au Prince. People blame God for cancer, wars, accidents, divorces and all sorts of silly things. In this weekend’s gospel we hear Jesus’ response to some deadly occurrences of His day.
Apparently, folks in Jesus’ time liked to blame God for tragedies as well as we do. They approached Him with questions about two recent deadly incidents that they were concerned about. Pontius Pilate and the Romans had killed some Galileans and a tower had fallen in Siloam near Jerusalem and eighteen more Jews had died. The response from the faithful disciples was, “Why would God do such things to us?”
Jesus’ answer was both assuring and challenging to His listeners. First He tells them that both sinners and saints die. We all have accidents. We all can be the victims of disease, violence, accidents, and tragedies. More importantly, God doesn’t pick on sinners any more than He picks on saints. Then Jesus challenges His audience to be prepared for their own death by repenting NOW for their sins.
Since we don’t know the when the axe will fall for us, Jesus calls His listeners then and us now to take the necessary steps in our own lives to be in the right relationship with God and our neighbor. We cannot guarantee that when we wake up in the morning, we will see the sunset. Jesus calls us to continue to be prepared.
Finally, I have two requests. I will be at my favorite place in the world this week on retreat. From Sunday afternoon until Friday evening I will be making my yearly retreat at Gethsemani. Please keep me in your prayers during this time. Lastly, you may have noticed that my hair is getting very wooly these days. I will be shaving it all off on St. Patrick’s Day to benefit research into cancers that effect children. Several other parishioners will be doing the same thing at other occasions in the next couple of weeks. Whether you contribute for them or me does not really matter, but please contribute so that we can all do a little part in keeping kids from suffering. If you’d like to contribute online, my link is www.stbaldricks.org/participant/frchuck. You may also give cash or checks to any of us participants in person. Write the checks to St. Baldrick’s Foundation for “haircut”. Thanks for any help you can give.
paz,
Fr. Chuck
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