Earl was a crusty eighty-three-year-old father of two grown children who was always known to speak bluntly and to the point. I came to know him, a parishioner, at another parish where I served. He was born in Rochester in a typical middle-class family. After attending a Catholic grammar school and Benjamin Franklin High School, he went to the University of Rochester where he obtained a B.S. degree in chemical engineering in 1942. He worked for all his adult life at Mixing Equipment Company in a variety of capacities including sales and the production of technical reference books in metallurgy. He was married for almost 60 years.

He admitted to me that he had not been active in church beyond weekly attendance at Mass for most of his life. Then in the 1960’s with the liturgical changes after the Second Vatican Council, he became a Eucharistic Minister, lector, and usher, until later it began to cut into his golf game!

A breakthrough came when he was invited and accepted working on a social ministry committee for his parish. The committee was at first charged with fundraising for local charities. Then the direction changed, into going to the sites where charitable projects were underway and connecting projects with people and faces and needs. He began to regularly help at Dimitri House, a men’s homeless shelter in the inner city. For several years he worked there serving two meals a day, and at the same time helping at St. Martin’s kitchen a parish mission in the city serving hot meals. The first day he arrived he asked: “What’s the hardest job here?” He sliced onions there for several years. He also began distributing Communion at Rochester General Hospital and enjoyed the cardiac unit because he had been a patient in that unit and could give encouragement.

Earl was a “shoot from the hip” kind of guy, irascible but committed to the Lord. He said God has given him much. Now he wanted to give return on the investment.
           Who are the people or the person who has shown you the way by example not just words? Give thanks for their life and the blessing they have been. Better yet, as Jesus says: “Go, and do the same.”  

• Thought for the week: A wonderful way to get out of a rut is to make a new friend.
• Smile for the week: A priest said to a precocious six-year-old boy, "So your mother says your prayers for you each night? That's very commendable. What does she say?" The little boy replied, "Thank God he's in bed!"