Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Easter
“I give you a new commandment, love one another. By this love you have for one another will people know that you are my disciples.”
In 1983 Kenneth Waters was sent to prison for the murder of a young woman in Ayer, Massachusetts. Despite his insistence that he had been at work the night of the killing, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.
His sister Betty Anne was convinced of her brother’s innocence and she decided to go to law school. She was divorced with two young children to raise and support, and so she worked as a waitress on weekends to pay her way through College. She graduated in 1997, 14 years later, and was admitted to the bar at the age of 40. All the while she spoke to her brother three times a week and told him not to give up hope.
This new attorney called for a search of DNA evidence and secure the release of a sample of blood from the crime scene. She began the long process of getting the blood tested and compared to her brother’s DNA. In February 2001, the results came back: Kenneth Water’s DNA did not match the blood found at the crime scene.
On 15th March 2001 Kenneth Waters was released from prison. Upon his release, Kenneth, with tears in eyes, said with both pride and gratitude, “What about this sister of mine!”
Bette Anne Waters did nothing less than put aside her own life for 18 years to save her brother.
A dramatic example, true, but maybe not so rare in another way. Often we see situations where people’s love is stretched and great generosity is called for and given, day after day. You see it in families who nurse a loved one who can’t care for themselves anymore, in people who care for those with alcohol or drug problems, with people who are very ill or severely handicapped. Love and generosity are called for and are given, every day.
And you see that love, that generosity, that service of others every day, in ordinary things: in all the time and care taken to cook meals, to wash and iron clothes, in work done to earn money so that children and spouses can be secure and happy, in work done properly and carefully so that it will be right, in thoughtful gestures, in asking how you feel, in remembering special occasions, in taking time to listen, comfort or encourage, in small little jobs that are hardly noticed but take time and are done for us.
All of our lives depend on and are enriched by the service of others, by people who give of their time and talent for us. Today, take time to appreciate them. Our world is built on little acts of love and also, to decide to make our own contribution to that world.
St Therese of Lisieux believed her vocation was not to be a great missionary or to do extraordinary things, but to follow what she called her “Little Way”, of making her every act a service of others, of doing ordinary things extraordinarily well, of making her every act an act of love. Maybe we could make this week a week of choosing love by trying to follow her “Little Way.”