Fr. Eric Tellez: So many times people can feel isolated, invisible, and not valued, even in the human family. And I'd like to share with you now a three minute video that gives a real life story that people who are living in isolation can be helped by others.
Speaker 3: We end tonight in one of America's wide open spaces where you might think your neighbors are too far away to notice you until you realize they've been there all along. Steve Hartman learned that on the road.
Speaker 4: If you drive to the edge of nowhere and keep heading toward the middle of it, you will eventually come to the home of Mike and Kayla Wintz. I've traveled this country. I don't know if I've ever been as remote as I am right now. How remote are they?
Speaker 5: A gallon of milk is a little over an hour away.
Speaker 4: Mike and Kayla are ranchers deep in the sand hills of Western Nebraska. And although they are isolated, Mike and Kayla say they have never felt more connected to this great nation. Thanks to the blessing of a curse. A couple months ago, the largest wildfire in Nebraska history burned about a thousand square miles of ranch land, including the fields that Mike and Kayla lease. You have 11,000 acres?
Yes. How much of that burned?
Speaker 5: All of it. Within two hours, it's all gone. It's tough.
Speaker 4: With the grass gone, the cattle couldn't graze and Mike and Kayla were in real danger of losing their livelihood. Other ranchers in the area who might have helped were in the same boat. They didn't have hay either. But then, Mike's phone started ringing.
Speaker 5: Telling me that hay was on the way, where did I want it, and
Speaker 4: How many are here?
Speaker 5: I'm guessing 700. And they're still coming? Yeah.
Speaker 4: So far Mike has been gifted about $80,000 worth of hay from mostly anonymous donors.
Speaker 5: They don't want the glory.
Speaker 4: Isn't that the best kind of kind deed though? Yeah.
Speaker 1: They know they did it and that's all they need. Yeah.
Speaker 4: It is selflessness. Yeah. And it is of great magnitude.
Speaker 6: Up to 200 phone calls a day of people wanting to donate hay.
Speaker 4: Sarah Covert is a volunteer. She's been connecting donors with other ranchers in the area who lost all their grass and hay too.
Speaker 6: Okay. You see these convoys of 20 plus trucks loaded with hay, and there's school kids cheering them on.
Speaker 4: No one asked for this help. It just came from thousands of farmers and ranchers and truck drivers as far away as South Carolina. And although the need remains desperate.
Speaker 6: Every every rancher that we've called to send them hay has asked us to send it to their neighbor first.
Speaker 4: Empathy, charity, and grace, qualities that guarantee no matter how isolated you are, you are never alone. Steve Hartman on the road in the Nebraska Sandhills.
Fr. Eric Tellez: Anonymous gifts. Giving without being recognized or having a name to it. Ranchers threatened to lose their livelihood. Each one of them says, my neighbor first, give to them first. That's the call of our Christian faith.
That's how we're called to live. In today's first reading from the acts of the apostles, this is chapter six. This is written by Saint Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke and he continues that through the acts of the apostles. And we've been hearing from this all through the Easter season in our first reading. Prior to today's reading, Luke paints a picture of everything great.
The community is getting along. It's growing. They're sharing everything they have. Like wow. It sounds like utopia.
And then something happens. Greek speaking people start moving into the neighborhood. They come with a different language, a different philosophy of life, a different understanding of religion, and it creates conflict and tension. They are changing the community. Who are they?
Now the community, the followers of Jesus want to do good, and they do. And they distribute food to all the needy in the community, but what can happen is you overlook a group or a group of people. Whether it was intentional or not, widows, the Greek speaking widows were overlooked. Food wasn't given to them. And the apostles who are in charge start hearing complaints from those who were the Greeks and saying, this isn't right.
Now the apostles could have said, all you do is complain. They could have said, you brought this all on yourself or you're so different. Why are you here anyway? There could have been many reasons and blaming them for their problem. And the apostles lay a great example for us that they listen and they see conflict intention as an opportunity to see where compassion is missing.
And that's something that's very powerful in being a Christian community. And so people even in our great work that we try to do here can be invisible, not seen as valued or important or feel isolated. And so I invite you this week as you return to school, as you return to work in your neighborhood, and even in your family, I tell you there are people that are invisible, that we overlook because we're busy. We're doing a lot of things that some of it's important and some of it really isn't that important. And I ask you to think about this week.
Who are the Greek widows in your life? In doing all great work, they somehow get lost. In every school, when I coach at a school, I see people who are different, who are lonely, who don't connect, who some students don't reach out to. I know some family members who live together, who live under the same roof because of business of life. They never talk to each other.
Or there's things that haven't been said in a long time. Or there isn't reassurance of love and that they matter. There are neighbors who aren't speaking to one another because of disagreements for whatever reason. And they become invisible. They become isolated.
And they become our Greek widows. What a great example in Nebraska. Anonymous giving. Not having to be recognized. Not having to say, look what I'm doing.
They see a need and they do it. That's Christian life. And rather than thinking us first, me first, I'm first, even in the midst of stress and livelihood being destroyed, Each rancher said, no. The other rancher, go there first. It isn't fairy tale.
It isn't a nice story that we can close the book on. It's how we're called to live. That's how every Christian community should be. And if we fall short on it, we gotta keep looking at acts, the apostles of acts, acts of the apostles chapter six. Apostles listen.
Apostles reflect and they see conflict and tension as an opportunity to reveal where compassion is missing.
Speaker 1: This has been a Saint Patrick Catholic Community podcast. For more of our shows, go to our website and click Saint Patrick's Studio.