  | ||
|
 
 Lesson number one: About 50 years ago I learned a great lesson. I was young and had much to learn. The president of the Mothers Club in the parish came to me, the chaplain of the group, all upset and frantic. "All the mothers are upset about a terrible issue (which I forgot long ago)" "Wow!" I said and went running to the pastor who was a wise man. "Father," I said, with a hopeless worried look about me. "All the mothers are upset about the terrible issue!" He asked me two questions. "How many and who are they?" I stopped, thought for a moment and could only come up with two names. I never forgot that lesson and share it with everyone I deal with even to this day. So, when someone says, "Everyone is upset about a particular issue" just ask those two questions: "How many and who are they?" You will be surprised that "everyone" is just a very few people.
Lesson number two: It is impossible to quote someone exactly. We cannot even quote ourselves in the exact words we first spoke. Therefore, I follow a principle and it saves me a lot of time, pain, and worry. "Never believe anything someone says that someone else said!" The story never reflects exactly what was said. It also, changes as it is retold and retold. It you don't hear it from the original person, don't believe it. It is never true. You cannot even quote yourself exactly. Try it some time. Tell someone exactly what you said yesterday and I will bet you it will not be exactly the same. Lesson number three: Gossip can be devastating. For some unknown reason if someone says something bad about someone we tend to believe it. The question to ask is, "Do we know this for a fact or did someone tell us about it?" Often we tend to chime in and make a "mountain out of a mole hill." People have a right to their reputation and character assassination is a very, very, terribly wrong thing to do. Remember, when there is a group of people hacking away at someone's reputation; the same thing can happen to us when we are not present. If what we say is not true, we at least can repair the harm to some degree by telling everyone we were mistaken. On the other hand, if what we say is, in fact, true there is no way to undo the harm. This is a serious obligation on our part and we need to be very careful in what we say and what we repeat. Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." This is not easy to do. We certainly don't want to harm ourselves, so, therefore lets not harm our neighbors. May Our Blessed Lord give us the grace and courage to be silent when love requires it. Fr. Cardelli Italian Catholic Federation, 8393 Capwell Drive, Suite 110, Oakland CA 94621 tel: 888/ICF-1924; 510/633-9058; fax: 510/633-9758; Email: info@icf.org Website designed by HYPERSPHERE |