As I drove to church this morning, I tuned to the local Catholic radio station. On Saturday mornings they play an episode from Family Theater. This morning’s story, I quickly determined, was about a young boy and his toy whistle, a story I had heard before but decided to listen to again as I drove to church.
The young boy loved his toy whistle and blew it often and everywhere, including school, where it taken from him after he blew it during one of his classes. He was also required to stay after class as a punishment for his misbehavior. His parents noticed the missing whistle and his staying late. “Did you blow that whistle in school?” they asked. “No,” he replied, but he was staying late just because his teacher was mean. She was mean to everyone, except one other teacher who she was always kissing. His parents didn’t believe him, but …. And so the rumors started among parents in the small village, and both teachers were fired as a result of the young boy’s lies. On her last day, the class watched silently as she cleaned out her desk. Then she called the young boy’s name, and gave him back the whistle.
I arrived at the church early intending to go to confession, but I decided to stay in the car a few minutes to listen to the end of the story. The man on the radio said how the boy had justified all his actions to himself and his friends, and no one ever knew of his lies. At that point I suddenly realized the story being told on the radio was being told by an old man, who once was that boy. He was cleaning out old storage boxes from his youth, and came across the whistle. He remembered how his young teacher had gone home to live with her parents after her firing, and that rumors followed her as she tried to find new employment. She contracted a minor illness and then, to everyone’s surprise, had suddenly died. The old man telling the story sadly recalled all that he had done as a boy, blew the rusted whistle once more, and then threw it away.
It was a very moving program, and made me sad.
The man spoke of how lightly we treat another’s life, and like little kids we think everything we want is so important. But every life is important he said ---- and then I realized that the radio story had ended, and these words were a man speaking in support of a local pregnancy counseling center, against abortion. The words he said sounded like they also could have been said about that little boy, the one who wanted things his way. But this was a different story; it just sounded the same, as like that little boy some of us think our life is more important than some other little child’s life, and so we can kill the life God gifted us.
It was a very moving commercial, and made me sad.
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Inside the church, I read my Morning Prayers, and so many of the words continued the story in my heart.
1st Letter of John, 3:11-17
This is the message you heard from the beginning: you should love one another. We should not follow the example of Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. …. The man who does not love is among the living dead. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that eternal life abides in no murder’s heart.
The way we came to understand love was that He laid down His life for us; we too must lay down our lives for our brothers. I ask you, how can God survive in a man who has enough of the world’s goods, yet closes his heart to his brother when he sees him in need?
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I had arrived early at church intending to go to confession, but a sign said that there would be no confession today; there would be the sacrament of Confirmation given, in which the Holy Spirit is called down upon people to help them begin to witness love to others as Jesus did. And then at mass, we heard a young man pronounce a commitment of his beliefs and his oath, in front of all his parish witnesses, that he would give his life to God. Next week he will be ordained as a priest, and the Holy Spirit called down upon him, for him to become a priest, a shepherd of God’s people.
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All these stories were about the importance of each life, to the God who created them, and as they should be to each one of us. No life is unimportant. Ours is no more important than that any other’s, but how we each live our life has eternal consequences.
It was a good morning.
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