THE GOLDEN RULE

[Today’s  two  readings for this First Monday in Lent have some great specific and practical stuff on how to love one another. And did you notice at the end of today’s first reading, we have one version of the Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as yourself. So this morning I decided on writing a short simple story called, “The Golden Rule.” Cf. Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18 and Matthew 25: 31-36.]

When Jack’s father died, Jack got to give his father’s eulogy.

He had 3 or 4 days to think about it and he typed into his computer page after page of wonderful stories about how great a guy his dad was - being so kind to everyone he met.

He wrote down things like, “Once the whole family was in the car and we were heading home from Sunday Mass. It was a really nasty winter day. Suddenly dad pulled the car to the curb and stopped. All of us in the car were wondering what he was about to do.

“He opened up the car door. The wind was howling. Standing there in the cold  he took his overcoat off. He had spotted a homeless guy who only had a flannel shirt on. He walked over and put the coat on the guy and handed him a $20.  Didn’t say a word. Headed back to our car. Pulled away from the curb and continued on our way home.”

He had pages and pages and pages of stories just like that one.

His dad was something else. Then he began to think about his father being a man of few words. “KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid” would be a life principle for him. But he never heard his dad say that - but his dad lived that message.

What his dad did say and say often was, “The Golden Rule.”

So to keep it simple and to say very little at his dad’s funeral,  Jack said something like the following.

“Good Morning. Thank you for being here at our dad’s funeral.

“Our dad was a man of few words - but a man of lots of action.

“Ever since we were little kids he would say to us, ‘The Golden Rule.’

“At first we didn’t know what that meant - but in time we knew exactly what those three words, “The Golden Rule” meant.

“After Mass someone would say, “That was a long llllllllooooonggg sermon.”

“And sometimes our dad would respond, ‘The Golden Rule.’

“We didn’t know if he meant, ‘Stop complaining. You wouldn’t want people complaining about you, would you?’ or ‘The priest took 15 minutes to say, “The Golden Rule.”’

“So to keep it simple and to sum it all up,  our dad was The Golden Rule - or our dad taught us the Golden Rule.

“Do good stuff to others because wouldn’t you like good stuff to happen to you and don’t do things that hurt others, because who wants to be hurt. Amen!”

Then Jack went back down to his bench in church - first touching his dad’s casket - saying under  his breath, “Thanks dad, thank.”