The Ushers

Attending Mass with my three-year-old grandson has been an interesting experience. It’s kind of like climbing a chain of hills and resting in the valleys. He’s quiet. He’s noisy. He’s playing with a toy. He’s on the floor. He’s bored, and then he’s ready to go outside to play on the playground.

One of the highlights of the Mass for this grandma and her grandson has become the appearance of the collection baskets. We watch the ushers get them out. We count them. We have a huge presentation of a dollar bill going from my pocket into his hand, and then we watch the ushers head up the aisles to collect the money.

A three-year-old doesn’t have much of an attention span, so my daughter-in-law and I must remind him that the ushers AND the baskets are heading our way. Like the prophets of the Old Testament, we encourage him, “Get ready!”

Now that I sit in the very back of church with other families with small children, I have noticed that we are all participating in this same ritual: Get the money ready, and then watch them put it carefully into the baskets.

Before this year, I don’t think I realized how difficult it can be for tiny little hands to put a piece of paper or a coin into a small container. Now I do. It’s hard.

At my parish, the ushers are outstanding with the children.

They breeze down the aisles at a comfortable pace until they see a small child. Then everything stops. They are so patient as these little parishioners aim for the baskets. Their kind gestures may seem minor, but they really aren’t.

St. Teresa of Calcutta famously said, “Do small things with great love.”

I think that’s what we are called to do.

Most people living here in southern Indiana won’t be leaving any time soon to work with lepers the way St. Damien of Molokai did. Few of us will follow in the saintly footsteps of Mother Teresa, imitating her work with the destitute and the dying.

But we have been given 24 hours in each of our days, and we can choose how to spend our time.

The words at the end of Ephesians 4 are so simple, but so challenging: Be kind to one another.

I think that means when we are in the grocery store and when we are in traffic. It also means offering kindness when we are with the difficult people in our lives.

The ushers at my parish seem to have figured it out. These unsung heroes know that the suggestion to “be kind to one another” is fulfilled when they offer the collection baskets to the littlest members of the Church.