what my priest taught me

It was a cold chilly morning and as usual I headed to St. Paul’s Christ Academy. I was enthusiastic about my 2 hr class as I knew that my voids would be filled. The Mass commenced on time and on the sight of the minister for the day I already felt my anticipations. His name was Fr. Big. He was the usual wise, cool calm and collected but very well researched priest…..What would he have for me that Sunday?????? My thoughts ran wild. Something inside convinced me it would be a sunny day in all aspects. The sermon began with reflections about Faith….All the definitions that Faith had been defined in by the English dictionary and in the church doctrine were in the Pamphlet. That I had heard before. I was thirsty for something different. Could he quench it? Logical meaning yet contemporary. This priest would not disappoint me and one thing I knew for sure was that the priest was a good teacher. A good teacher, he said, is someone who teaches one something and relates with it. A bad teacher, as your guess may be, is one who transfers knowledge from written books and transfers it to the Medulla Oblongata and it evaporates/ sublimes soon after. That was his lesson # 1.He now proceeded to the layman’s understanding of Faith. He used the one thing that Architects, carpenters, kindergarten children and many other professions must use. It was a Pencil………”It can’t get better than this” I said to myself. I was having an internal monologue and the more I tried to think, the more I found myself pondering about a pencil. He didn’t keep us waiting. At that point everyone had lent him their ear. He stated them with brevity and conciseness.

A pencil must be held

A pencil must be sharpened

A pencil treasures its inner fountain

A pencil always leaves a mark

A pencil’s error is easily erased.

I had never thought about all that. Talk about taking trivialities for granted. It left me thinking. What a simple way to fulfill one’s purpose. What an easy definition of faith! What a great teacher! What a lesson it was! Fr. Big had done it again. This was my motivation every Sunday that I felt sleepy. I had to run to my 2 hr class called mass because it would sure be a sunny day.