The Happy Priest: 25th Sunday. Fidelity In Small Things

Daily fidelity requires tenacity and valor

This Sunday's liturgy reminds us that we need to be faithful in the small things of our every day existence.  "The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones" (Luke 16: 10). The call to fidelity is a lifelong adventure in living faith which begins anew every morning.

P align=justify>CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - One stormy night an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk said they were filled, as were all the hotels in town. "But I can't send a fine couple like you out in the rain," he said. "Would you be willing to sleep in my room?" The couple hesitated, but the clerk insisted. The next morning when the man paid his bill, he said, "You're the kind of man who should be managing the best hotel in the United States. Someday I'll build you one." The clerk smiled politely.

A few years later the clerk received a letter from the elderly man, recalling that stormy night and asking him to come to New York. A round-trip ticket was enclosed. When the clerk arrived, his host took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street, where stood a magnificent new building. "That," explained the man, "is the hotel I have built for you to manage." The man was William Waldorf Astor, and the hotel was the original Waldorf-Astoria. The young clerk, George C. Boldt, became its first manager.

This Sunday's liturgy reminds us that we need to be faithful in the small things of our every day existence.  "The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones" (Luke 16: 10).

Fidelity is an austere Biblical virtue.  It takes a lot of will power, sacrifice and commitment to live this virtue every day.  If we are faithful in the small things of our every day existence, we will also be faithful in the great tasks that are entrusted to us.  Fidelity to the details of our duty will form the character that enables us to faithfully execute even greater responsibilities. 

What are examples of the small things that we deal with each day?  Examples include punctuality, personal hygiene, dressing appropriately, personal order and discipline, daily prayer, small acts of kindness, and diligence in our work.  When we go to our parish for Mass or a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, we bless ourselves with holy water and make a fervent genuflection.  These two acts, when done in faith and not out of routine, provide an excellent opportunity to be faithful in something small, but profound in purpose and meaning. 

Throughout her life, Mother Theresa showed the world how to be faithful in small things.  She once said: "Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.  It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving". 

To be faithful in the small things or the big things of life is not easy.  Life is filled with many challenges and obstacles.  Nevertheless, no matter how adverse the circumstances may be, we must always persevere in the adventure of fidelity.

Clarence Jordan was a man of unusual abilities and commitment. He had two Ph.D.s, one in agriculture and one in Greek and Hebrew. So gifted was he, he could have chosen to do anything he wanted. He chose to serve the poor. In the 1940s, he founded a farm in Americus, Georgia, and called it Koinonia Farm. It was a community for poor whites and poor blacks. Such an idea did not go over well in the Deep South of the 1940's.

Ironically, much of the resistance came from good church people who followed the laws of segregation as much as the other people in town. The people tried everything to stop Clarence. They tried boycotting him, and slashing workers' tires when they came to town. Over and over, for fourteen years, they tried to stop him.

Finally, in 1954, the Ku Klux Klan had enough of Clarence Jordan, so they decided to get rid of him once and for all. They came one night with guns and torches and set fire to every building on Koinonia Farm except Clarence's home, which they riddled with bullets.

Clarence recognized the voices of many of the Klansmen; even one of them was the local newspaper's reporter. The next day, the reporter came out to see what remained of the farm. The rubble still smoldered and the land was scorched, but he found Clarence in the field, hoeing and planting.

"I heard the awful news," he called to Clarence, "and I came out to do a story on the tragedy of your farm closing." Clarence just kept on hoeing and planting. The reporter kept prodding, kept poking, trying to get a rise from this quietly determined man who seemed to be planting instead of packing his bags. So, finally, the reporter said in a haughty voice, "Well, Dr. Jordan, you got two of them Ph.D.s and you've but fourteen years into this farm, and there's nothing left of it at all. Just how successful do you think you've been?"

Clarence stopped hoeing, turned toward the reporter with his penetrating blue eyes, and said quietly but firmly, "About as successful as the cross. Sir, I don't think you understand us. What we are about is not success but faithfulness. We're staying. Good day." Beginning that day, Clarence and his companions rebuilt Koinonia and the farm is going strong today.

This story reminds me of other words spoken by Mother Theresa that have impressed me very much.  She said: "I am not called to be successful; I am called to be faithful."

Daily fidelity requires tenacity and valor.  Every morning when the alarm clock goes off, we wake up to face another day filled with many blessings, but many challenges as well.  To wake up every morning with a positive attitude and a smile is not an easy enterprise.  This is why many spiritual giants in the Catholic tradition, including St. Escriva, call our first moment of every morning, the heroic moment.  Every morning we have a choice: we can begin a new day with a fighting spirit, or we can allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the obstacles that challenge us.  Only the heroic have the capacity to be faithful.

One of the most tragic events during the Reagan Presidency was the Sunday morning terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, in which hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded as they slept.

Marine Corps Commandant Paul Kelly visited some of the wounded survivors then in a Frankfurt, Germany, hospital. Among them was Corporal Jeffrey Lee Nashton, severely wounded in the incident. Nashton had so many tubes running in and out of his body that a witness said he looked more like a machine than a man; yet he survived.

As Kelly neared him, Nashton, struggling to move and racked with pain, motioned for a piece of paper and a pen. He wrote a brief note and passed it back to the Commandant. On the slip of paper were but two words - "Semper Fi" the Latin mottos of the Marines meaning "forever faithful."

With those two simple words Nashton spoke for the millions of Americans who have sacrificed body and limb and their lives for their country - those who have remained faithful.

(Acknowledgements: www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations and www.ewtn.com)

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Father James Farfaglia, the Happy Priest, is the pastor of Saint Helena of the True Cross of Jesus Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Father has a hard hitting blog called Illegitimi non carborundum.  He has also published a book called Man to Man: A Real Priest Speaks to Real Men about Marriage, Sexuality and Family Life.  You can contact Father at fjficthus@gmail.com.  Father's audio podcast will begin again next week.

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