Monday, 10/8/12
The Gospel invites us to alter our plans to come to the aid
of people we see in need. Let me brag about the one time I did that. I was in
vacation clothes, driving south on I-95 just south of Daytona, when I saw a man
leaning against an old car with a U-Haul parked behind it. I pulled over and
asked him how he came to be stuck there, and he said he had run out of gas.
I took him down to the next exit off of I-95, and as we
went, I heard his story. He and his wife grew up in Cuba, but only met in
Miami. With two children they moved up to near Boston where he got work in a
furniture factory, and with another child born there, they were doing well.
Then, his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. They had no insurance. Their
parents down n Miami, when they talked by phone, told him to fly the wife and
children down. He had rented the U-Haul for their belongings, and he was trying
to make Miami without paying for a motel.
We got off the highway at the next exit, bought a can of
gas, then, drove north of his U-Haul, circling back to it. He offered me ten
dollars. When I refused he said, “I don’t have to ask. I know who you are.”
I thought he had guessed I was a priest, so I asked him, “Alright,
who am I?”
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