A Story of Love

 

The signal from the local Catholic radio station has been erratic for the past two weeks, scratchy or even silent.  So, I was surprised this morning when I started the car in the garage that a loud, clear man’s voice was speaking from the radio (it was so clear he could have been sitting next to me).  I quickly realized the broadcast was a Family Theater re-run on the Catholic radio station.  Family Theater aired shows that originated around the time I was born.  I’ve heard its shows before; they are very good, and so I listened as I drove to church.

The man on the radio was telling a story to his grandkids about another man who was wrongly imprisoned for a bank robbery, but no one believed him except his mother.  And then the warden informed him that his mother had died.  The prisoner became enraged, especially at the judge who didn’t believe him and sentenced him to prison, and he resolved vengeance.  Eventually, the man got out of prison and immediately went to the judge’s house to kill him.  He was stopped by another man at the house, and then the judge and he told the now ex-prisoner how they now believed in his innocence, and they even got him a job --- at that small town’s bank, the one he was wrongly imprisoned for robbing.  And he did such a good job that he got promotions at the bank, and became very happy.

The man telling this story was then interrupted by one of his grandkids, who said he was sorry, and he’d stop being angry at the kid who had wronged him, which must have been the trigger for grandpa’s story.  Then one of the kids asked: “Whatever happened to that man?”  And grandpa answered: “Well, he eventually became head of that bank.”  And then the kids together loudly responded: “But grandpa, you’re the head of that bank.”  And he said: “Yes, I am.  Yes I am.”

Like all those Family Theater stories it was very touching.  But then I heard the voice continue --- or, at first I thought it was the same, calm voice of the grandpa.  But, it was another voice.  And the man now talking calmly said how 50 years ago abortion became legal in this country, and became part of it.  Repeal of Roe can’t change the hearts that were formed accepting abortion.  But during that time, and still now, women have had difficult pregnancies (kind of reminded me of the stories of the unjust prisoner), and Guadalupe Workers has existed to help them, and their children.  And on June 27^th, Guadalupe Workers was celebrating the addition of a new ultra-sound machine, for those women and their children.  All listeners were invited to come to their offices and join in the celebration.

That second story impacted me more than the first one, and brought me to tears.  In all my years of listening to Catholic radio, I have never heard such a moving, so wonderfully said and placed, commercial.  Like when the grandpa was talking, it was told as a sincere story of love.