Let me just say I was not dressed at all for running. I was wearing flat-soled shoes and carrying an umbrella and a laptop bag which also contained a couple of books. As I was running down the street I would stop every minute or so to catch my breath, but I would keep looking down at my watch because I knew I had to make it because this was the last bus that would pass until morning.
I made it to the bus stop after what seemed like an eternity and I was sweating and breathing heavily. Within 30 seconds the bus arrived and I felt relieved to sit down. This bus was en route to the train station, where I would take a train downtown, then another train back to my home. Problem was I didn’t have any money left to pay the fare. My wife called me and I told her about my dilemma and we didn’t know what to do. She told me that it would be alright and that she would pray for me. Earlier that morning I had explained to her that I had been praying before the Blessed Sacrament repeating the words, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
So I arrived at the station and I was standing there in the almost empty terminal looking at the stairs down the lower platform and back at the ticket machine. I knelt down in desperation to look for any spare change I could find in my bag. At that moment a young lady walked up from behind me and asked, “did you already buy your pass?” I told her that I hadn’t and she reached out her arm and said, “here, it’s good for the rest of the day,” and she walked away.
I was astonished. After boarding the train I sat down, closed my eyes, and spoke to God in a prayer of thanksgiving. It was a feeling of relief obviously, but something else much more powerful. I had been humbled. I thought about my situation. I was literally down to my last dollar, but I knew that I would get a check the next day. But I thought about all the people in this world who go through that every day. People who don’t know where there next meal is coming from.
I must admit that I never really considered myself as one in need, but rather saw myself as the one to help those in need. When life is good it’s easy to look down others. It’s easier to treat people as if they are less than you, just because they don’t dress as nice as you do or have as much money as you do. We hear stories about generosity in the Bible like the story of the widow who gave her last to cents in Mark 12:42. Do we understand the importance of generosity? Do we live our lives in charity? Are we good stewards of the blessings God gives us?
This year has been a good year for me financially. My business has taken off and I’m finally starting to earn a real living after being laid off two years ago. But for some reason this week I was short on cash and I can honestly say I was down to my last dollar. To that young lady it might’ve seemed like a simple gesture, but to me it was an act of charity that rocked me to the core. An act that not only changed the course of my life that night, but something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.