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Ordinary 4 – C
Jer. 1:4-5, 17-19, 1 Cor 12:31-12:13, Lk 4:21-30
Jan 28, 2007
Fr. Carl McCarthy
Over the past 2 Sundays we have focused our attention
on deepening our awareness of Stewardship. To do this, we have heard
parishioners share their stories about what Stewardship means to them. We
heard Ken Caselden say that, for him, it came in the form of the birth of
his daughter. He had never thanked God for anything. But looking into the
eyes of this newborn child, he was filled with gratitude. Todd Butler
pulled his wallet out of his pocket and shared the first time he realized
the meaning of stewardship. He was sitting in church listening to a talk
much like this, and the witness asked the assembly to pull out their
wallets and give them to a person sitting near them. Can you imagine the
trust it would take to give your wallet away? Peggy Wilson said that it
came with a reorganization of her life, when she took a $21,000 pay cut,
and a friend encouraged her to tithe with the first paycheck of the month.
She was scared to death, but she did it.
This Sunday, the Stewardship witness turns to me.
Stewardship for me means believing. Believing that God is alive. Believing
that God loves me. Believing that God forgives me. Believing, that, just
as God called the prophet Jeremiah at a young age, and gave him the
strength to get through the hardships of his life, God gives me the
ability to get through the hardships of my life. For this gift from God, I
am grateful. I may not be too grateful at the time, but after enduring the
hardships and recognizing the little, and even the big ways that I have
been changed, my belief grows deeper.
My belief in God was deeply changed about 9 years
ago. It was Palm Sunday, 1998, when I got a phone call from my brother,
who told me that my dad was missing. From what the doctors told us, we
believe dad had Alzheimer’s. On several occasions, he had driven to other
states by himself. He went to visit his brother in Alabama, and he drove
to Little Rock, Arkansas, to look at farm equipment. He was found weaving
in and out of traffic. But this time he had bought a new car, and, without
telling anyone, he just left. For a week we had no idea where he was. We
filed a missing persons report with the Kentucky State Police, and they
issued an All Points Bulletin on him.
You may wonder why we had not taken away his keys.
We tried, but his illness caused him to become very combative, and he
fought us to the very end. He would call the sheriff and have us removed
from his house. He hired a lawyer and told him that we were trying
to take his money. His own human rights led to this troubling event.
Throughout Holy Week of 1998, we did not know where
dad was. The State Police had stopped him in Texas, but he was able to
talk himself out of any trouble. Finally, on the night of Good Friday, we
received a call from one of dad’s frie nds,
who said, "your dad called me, and he is in the care of the US Government
in Monterey, Mexico." Dad had driven from Owensboro and crossed the border
into Mexico.
It took two days to work between the governments to
get him out of Mexico. On Easter Monday, I flew to Laredo, Texas, to meet
my dad at the border and bring him home. He was not where they said he
would be, so I began to search, and I made my way across the Rio Grande
River into Mexico, where I found dad sitting in a police station waiting
for me. When he saw me, he said, and I quote, “What the hell took you so
long to get here boy?” I said, “Traffic was heavy dad.” Then I asked, “Are
you ready to go home?” And he replied, “This has not been a good
vacation.”
He had lost several pounds of weight and had no
identification or money on him. When he got home, we were able to admit
him to a locked Alzheimer’s unit. We had his rights taken away and cared
for him as much as he would allow. Dad died on October 16, 1999.
This was one of the hardest times of my life. But in
that time, I came to deepen my belief in God. I believe now that God was
in that hardship. I believe that God gave me and my family the strength to
take care of my dad as best as we could.
Stewardship for me is believing. I believe that God
gives us life, and I believe that we have to give that life back to God.
I believe that everything that we have belongs to God…our children and our
parents. All that we have is God’s, and through the sacrifices we endure,
we grow in God’s love.
sdrose@bellsouth.net
2-7-2007 |