Living the Gospel: fruit from the sowing

The Gospel speaks of God’s love. Sowing seeds that carry this proclamation and choosing to live it out is an expression of the beautiful, fruitful freedom we have been given.

Condominium meeting
When notice of the condominium meeting arrived, my first thought was to find an excuse and avoid this commitment. My youngest son, hearing me complain about these meetings that I thought were useless, objected.

“But Dad, it’s an opportunity to make the whole building a family!”

I hadn’t thought of that. But how could I turn that meeting into something beautiful and new?

With the help of everyone in the house, we came up with a guessing game for the tenants’ names, their number of children, type of work… Then we made a plan to set up visits and dinners, plus a list of birthdays and other celebrations.

The more ideas came up, the more I looked forward to the meeting. And it was a real party. My wife had prepared sweets, the children had prepared cards to set up visits, and our daughter, who was good at drawing, had prepared diplomas and prizes for the winners.

Never had the condominium meeting seemed so short as that evening. A different air was beginning to circulate in the building.
M., Italy

Dolls
After Dad’s death, thinking that Mom could no longer live alone, the question went around us children: “Will we be forced to put Mom in a nursing home?”

My family lives in an apartment that is too small to house her. But my wife and I decided to trust in God’s providence, and with this in mind we rented for Mom the apartment next to ours, which in the meantime had become available. It seemed like a gamble, but the arrival of our kids’ grandmother enriched their lives and ours.

She was very good at making fabric dolls and started giving them as gifts to those who had children. Then a person from the parish saw this and appreciated them, setting up a market where she could sell them along with other sewing items.

Today, Mom’s home has become a small craft centre and a school for those with free time. We are happy to see her joyful and practically rejuvenated in feeling useful.
H., France

The wallet
I was visiting my mother in the small town where she lives. I don’t know why, but before passing by, I felt the urge to have a cappuccino at the bar. Spotting a wallet on the floor in front of the cashier, I asked the cashier whose it was. She questioned the customers present, but the wallet did not belong to any of them.

Upon examining the contents, the owner’s name was an acquaintance of my mother’s, so through her I could get it to him. The cashier knew my mother, so she trusted me with the wallet.

Not far from the bar I saw the owner. I greeted him, we exchanged a few words and then I asked him if he had his wallet with him. When he realized he didn’t have it, I showed it to him. When I left him, he couldn’t stop thanking me.

Later, thinking back to that sudden urge to stop by the bar, I realized that sometimes, unknowingly, we become instruments for doing good.
M., Slovakia

Edited by Maria Grazia Berretta

From “Il Vangelo del Giorno”, Città Nuova, year VIII, n.2, March–April 2022.