Mar. 25: The Humbling Grace of Service

When Janet Sahm, co-founder of Verily magazine, was in college, she took a summer job with an elderly care program in Indianapolis.  Though Sahm grew up Catholic, she’d become disconnected from her faith as she got older.  Her interest in reconnecting with Catholicism coincided with her new job.

Before she was trained, Sahm got an emergency call to take the overnight shift caring for a 97-year-old infirm priest named Msgr. Richard Kavanagh.  “I was scared to death,” she recalled on Christopher Closeup.  “[We] both laughed because he knew I didn’t know what I was doing, but he was so gracious.”

Msgr. Kavanagh grew so comfortable with Sahm that he asked her to help him say Mass in his kitchen.  She said, “I’d be his server and hold him up and help walk him to the altar.  The graces that were happening, I didn’t even realize…I was Catholic and desired to be close to our Lord, but how I was living my life was totally disconnected. What a gift I had to be with him in the last days of his life. That experience taught me the beauty of the Eucharist and the beauty of the Mass. It was humbling.”

I am among you as one who serves. (Luke 22:27)

Jesus, help me grow closer to You through humble service.