On Sunday my wife Ruth taught the Grades 4,5,6 Sunday School Class, a group of eight or nine kids. They spent time talking about the "everyday saints" of our St. Paul's congregation. There are a lot of worthy candidates but we chatted and Ruth settled on half a dozen, including another Ruth. Ruth Girardi worked in the kitchen forever and she was captain of the good ship St. Paul's in that regard. Under her direction thousands of meals were prepared for every imaginable occasion.
Ruth would get up in the wee hours of the morning to put turkeys in the oven at the church. She set another table at the Lunch Out for Seniors so that a gang from Clarington Connections could attend.
After her husband Dan died she kept going despite her deep loss. And even when she went down in the line of duty one day, a signal of health problems, she made a couple of comebacks. Eventually, though, she hung up her apron for a well-deserved rest. She has proved irreplaceable.
The inscription written on the card one girl made for Ruth says:
Thank you Mrs. Girardi
for the mouths you've fed,
the meals you've made,
and the many memories
smiles and kindness
you've shown.
from Sammy
That about sums it up, don't you think?
How about this everyday saints project? Something to which we can aspire, or does sainthood just happen?
Solar panels on St. Paul's? Check it out.
http://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.ca/2012/10/community-of-son-and-sun.html
I definitely don't think it just happens. Maybe a conscious choice to be helpful or generous in the beginning, but then becomes just who they are.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the older kids lesson that same day had them considering greatness and what it takes to be great...first traits that came to their minds were athletic skill and political power..but as the discussion furthered everyday saints were uncovered.
I liked the story of the young boy who thought the saints were the people in the church's stained glass window who the light shone through...
God's light does shine through the everyday saints out into the world.