16 August 2006: Wednesday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 18, 15-20
The Gospel speaks about how we should bring sinners and those who feel rejected back into the community. I would rather go about tackling these three things in an inspiring story from an e-mail from Arnold Raubenheimer, a retired mission doctor and gynecologist living in
One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive, as we had no incubator. (We had no electricity to run an incubator.) We also had no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. One student midwife went for the box we had for such babies and the cotton wool the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. "And it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed. As in the West it is no good crying over spilled milk, so in
The following
Could I honestly say, "Amen?" I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything. The Bible says so. But there are limits, aren't there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from the home land. I had been in
Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses' training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the verandah, was a large twenty-two pound parcel. I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone, so I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored. Then there was a box of mixed raisins and sultanas - that would make a batch of buns for the weekend.
Then, as I put my hand in again, I felt the.....could it really be? I grasped it and pulled it out ---- yes, a brand-new, rubber hot water bottle. I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could. Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!” Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone! She had never doubted. Looking up at me, she asked: "Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?" That parcel had been on the way for five whole months. Packed up by my former Sunday school class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God's prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. And one of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child - five months before --- in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it "that afternoon."
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The story thus tells us about our commitment to the poor, just as all those missionary doctors have committed themselves to poverty. Second, it tells us about petitionary prayer, the prayer for help, just as we --- like the children who prayed ---believe that through the intercessions of our Mother of Perpetual Help, God will answer our prayers. And finally it tells us about bringing people to the hands of God, we, like the children who have sent the dolly and the rubber hot water bottle, are able to show to those who feel abandoned that God and the community indeed loves them by our acts of kindness.
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