Year of Mercy Reflection

Friday, May. 06, 2016

I’ll never forget a poignant Sunday homily about the poor always being among us (Mk 14:7). It made me realize I had never met a poor person. 

A surge of conscience seared my heart; I knew it was no longer sufficient to simply write a check for missions and drop it in the offertory basket. I prayed and asked God for the grace of meeting people whom He considered to be poor. 

Within a year I was living in the remote town of Holy Trinity, Ala. The Lord answered my prayer with the birth of a baby girl to immigrant parents. They left their homeland of Mexico to find a new life of opportunity. 

Similarly, my own grandparents left starvation behind in Ireland more than 85 years earlier. I never met them; they died from tuberculosis 30 years before I was born. Yet, there I was walking and talking with people much like them. I came to the conclusion that many people must have come to the aid of my grandparents to help them learn about life in the United States and to find a Catholic church to continue their faith journey. Now I was helping a new generation of immigrants. It was humbling to simply lend a helping hand to make life and the practice of faith a little easier – much more meaningful than writing a check. 

To me, this is mercy at its finest: returning the hospitality and generosity extended to my immigrant grandparents by welcoming the stranger fleeing poverty.  

“Lord, when did we see you a stranger?” (Mt 25:38)

Lorena Needham, Lt Colonel, USAF, ret

Principal, Saint Marguerite Catholic School

Lay Ecclesial Minister