![](https://stmarystcatherine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/9-17-2023-from.png)
![](https://stmarystcatherine.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/11-27-2022-fr-sheridan-face2R.png)
This story was shared with me recently:
A lady asked a farmer: “How much do you sell your eggs for?” The old vendor replies “50 cents an egg, madam.” The lady says, “I’ll take 6 eggs for $2.50 or I’m leaving.” The old salesman replies, “Buy them at the price you want, Madam. This is a good start for me because I haven’t sold a single egg today and I need this to live.” She bought her eggs at a bargain price and left with the feeling that she had won.
She got into her fancy car and went to a fancy restaurant with her friend. She and her friend ordered what they wanted. They ate a little and left a lot of what they had asked for. They paid the bill, which was $150. The ladies gave $200 and told the fancy restaurant owner to keep the change as a tip…
This story might seem quite normal to the owner of the fancy restaurant, but very unfair to the egg seller…The questions it raises are: Why do we always need to show that we have power when we buy from the needy? Why are we generous to those who don’t even need our generosity?
I once read this somewhere, that a father used to buy goods from poor people at high prices, even though he didn’t need the things. Sometimes he paid more for them. I was amazed. One day his son asked him “Why are you doing this Dad?” His father replied: “It’s charity wrapped in dignity, son.”
Each one of us can do better. God gave us the power.
Blessings.
Fr. John
![](https://stmarystcatherine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/9-17-2023-animals.png)
BLESSING OF THE ANIMALS
Saturday, September 23, 2023 Noon
At the statue of Our Lady across from St. Francis Church (303 Bunker Hill Street)
![](https://stmarystcatherine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/9-17-2023-creation.png)
SEASON OF CREATION
September 1 through October 4 is the SEASON OF CREATION – a time to reflect more deeply on the call to ecological conversion,
both personal and communal.
Let’s reflect on these words from Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’: (LS 217 – 219) – “The ecological crisis is a summons to a profound interior conversion needed to bring about lasting change…Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s magnificent handwork is essential to a life of virtue…it is not an optional or secondary aspect of our Christian commitment. It entails a loving awareness that we are not disconnected from the rest of creation but joined in a splendid universal communion.”
And on these words from Thomas Berry’s The Great Work: “The universe story is our Sacred Story…We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of the Creator. The Great Work now is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the Earth in a mutually beneficial manner…
The Great Work is the work of all people. No one is exempt.”