A few months ago, I was leaving Blessed Sacrament Church in Providence, Rhode Island, after singing at two English Masses. As I drove to take my daughter Gaby to a meeting with her friends, we experienced something that still makes me reflect deeply today.
Halfway there, at a street corner, we saw a man on the ground who was trembling uncontrollably. He appeared to be suffering from a drug overdose.
My daughter and I looked at each other, moved and a bit paralyzed. We wondered whether someone else had already called 911. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking: What if we were the first to see him? We called emergency services, reporting the situation and giving the exact location. I continued driving another 10 blocks to drop off my daughter where she was meeting her friends.
Passing the same corner on my way back, I was relieved to see firefighters and an ambulance already there. The man who had been convulsing was now sitting up, alert and receiving help.
In my heart, I felt that perhaps we helped save a life that day.
This experience reminded me how easy it is for our society to become indifferent to the suffering of others. Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 25: He identifies himself with those who are hungry, sick, homeless or abandoned. Our Christian faith is not proven only inside the church building but in our willingness to stop, to see and to act.
Christmas does not end on Christmas Day. The Church invites us to contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation for several weeks. It is a prolonged season meant to transform us through the love God showed by becoming a small, fragile child.
Your help can begin by supporting your parish and donating to a food pantry, soup kitchen or any cause close to your heart. And let us not forget the poorest of the poor around the world whom we can help through Catholic Relief Services.
Remember: Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Christmas continues every time we reach out to someone suffering – every time we welcome the stranger, accompany the sick, or feed the hungry. It continues when we break through indifference and become instruments of hope. May the Lord grant us the grace to be modern Good Samaritans.
Silvio Cuéllar is a writer, liturgical music composer and journalist. He was coordinator of the Hispanic ministry office and editor of the newspaper El Católico de Rhode Island, the newspaper of the Diocese of Providence.