(Prayer offered on the Public Address system for the entire La Salle Academy educational community on Monday morning, 10 November 2014)
Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.
When I was growing up, we lived on the 1st floor of a tenement house and my Nana lived on the 2nd. Every day I would spend as much time as possible with her by running outside and up her steps to see her. She was the most kind and gentle woman I knew and no matter what little problem I was having when someone wasn’t nice to me, she would always say, “Remember to just keep treating others the way you want to be treated. You never know if that mean person has had a much worse day than you.”
I always tried to do what she said, but sometimes it was hard especially when I was teased by another teenager. I figured they were like all teenagers—they wake up each day, get dressed, collect their homework, and get to school.
That sounds typical, right?
But suppose that teenager has just done all that in the back of a car. They’ve just collected their homework from under the seat of the car where they put it before going to sleep sitting next to their little brother. At sunrise they walked to the YMCA to take a shower and get dressed. Instead of running to Dunkin’ to get a nice drink and muffin for breakfast, they skip that because they just had the last piece of a loaf of bread for breakfast.
When the day is over that teenager walks to the library to do some homework and then meets their mom and sibling at the closest soup kitchen and they wait in line for supper. They consider themselves at least lucky enough to go back to the car and have a place to sleep inside away from the elements.
People in RI live just like this every day. This scenario is played out not because the parents are too lazy to work, but perhaps because they lost their jobs 2 years ago and cannot find full-time work. They used to make $90,000 together, but after their job loss, eventually they also lost their home. In a blink of an eye, they went from easy street to perhaps living on the street. This is a true story of a mom at a soup kitchen who was asked how she ended up there.
There are so many homeless in RI, that there are not even enough beds.
A new shelter is being built right in St. Edward’s parish—5 minutes from here, and we have the opportunity to help them at the Dress Down Day Thanksgiving collection on Thursday.
So remember what my Nana said—just treat everyone the way you would want to be treated. There are so many who are in desperate need and we can make a big difference in their life. Wouldn’t we want someone to lend us a helping hand?
Let us pray.
The prayer of St. Theresa of Avila should inspire us:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
with compassion on this world.
May we have compassion enough to be the one who sacrifices a little so that others can live decent lives.
St. John Baptist de La Salle, pray for us.
Live Jesus in our hearts, forever.
Leslie Martinelli–Science Department