Celebrating 100 years
- Clustered Worship Sites:
Christ the King
St. Salome
St. Thomas the Apostle - Individual Worship Sites:
St. Cecilia
St. Margaret Mary - Irondequoit Catholic Communities:
Regional Mass Schedule
Regional Calendars
Irondequoit Senior Ministries
Return to Cycle Index
Cycle B
A Bruised Reed
He was a Catholic twelve-year-old living in Appalachia, where Catholics were few and Catholic influence was weak. Let's call him Jimmy. Around 1890, when Jimmy was attending catechism class, the pastor caught him chewing gum. He scolded the boy and told him to get rid of the gum. Instead, Jimmy walked right out and never returned either to the class or to the church.
Jimmy's two aunts tried their very best to persuade him to attend church again, but he was a stubborn kid, and the more they said yes, the more he said no.
Nevertheless, Jim still believed in the Catholic Church, and he said prayers every day. Came the Spanish-American War, and he signed up. One day, the ship he was on, a coaler, caught on fire. The fire was a bad one, and the young man knew that death was staring at the crew. That day he prayed very hard indeed, and the men aboard eventually got control of the fire.
Around 1940, the Glenmary Sisters started to take a census in the district where Jimmy lived, now an aged veteran, sick and incapacitated. Despite his sickness, he was ready to chat with the visitors, to own up that he was a fallen-away Catholic, and to tell the story of why he had left: the pastor and the chewing gum.
Sister Frances, the census-taker, saw a hope of reconciliation here. After a few more visits, she suggested that, since he was getting no younger, it might be good for Jim to see a priest.
The priest who came helped the old man to make his peace with God. Perhaps he succeeded because of his diplomacy. The pastor who scolded young Jimmy may have forgotten that people's sensitivities have to be respected. Jesus took people where they were; he was frank but forebearing. Thus he fulfilled what the prophet had foretold of him.
"A bruised reed he shall not break and a smoldering wick he shall not quench." (Isaiah, 42, 3. Today's first reading.)
-Father Robert F. McNamara
