Uncle Joe

Uncle Joe was a devout Catholic. He went to Mass every Sunday. As he approached the entry of the sanctuary, he would take the “holy water” on the wall and put it on his forehead. Then he would kneel and make the sign of the cross over his chest.

As he proceeded to his pew, he knelt again and made the sign of the cross before sitting. When came the time for the sacraments to be offered by the priest, Uncle Joe would go to the altar with his hands clasped in the form of prayer.

Once there, he would kneel before the priest, and the priest would place the emblem in his mouth. With great reverence, Uncle Joe would then get up, return to his pew, and kneel for a moment of prayer.

After the service, he would return home. Sad to say, he went in as a saint, but came out as a devil.

He was a hard and miserly man. His wife’s nephew had a mother who was poor and raising six children. But when they would visit his grocery store, obviously hungry, he would coldly send them away.

He would rather throw the spoiling food away than give it them. His wife on the other hand was grieved by his actions. When he was out getting inventory for the store, she would make a box of food, send her young son to find the boys, who would quickly run to fetch the box of food and take it to their mother.

So, as fast as the legs could carry them, they would grab the box, run through alleys to avoid notice by Uncle Joe, and return home to their mother with the food. Meanwhile, Uncle Joe still went on with his weekly rituals.

One day a young girl appeared at their home “looking for her father.” “Is my dad here?” She inquired. Mrs.

M., being sure that the girl had knocked on the wrong door, told her that she was mistakenly knocking at the wrong address. “My mother told me that I could find him here,” she insisted.

“Who is your father?” Asked Mrs. M. “Joe M.,,” answered the girl.

Struck with horror and grief, she was shocked to discover that her religious husband had for years been living in adultery. Uncle Joe’s two children had made their confirmation and their first communion in the church, while the nephews, being too poor to accomplish the same and not religious, were disdained by him. However unbeknownst to him, his clean-cut, college-attending son had become addicted to heroin.

By this time, the nephews had experienced conversion to Christ and feeling a burden for their lost cousin attempted to convert him. Uncle Joe angrily denounced them for their attempts, demanded that his boy be left alone, and insisted that they were the ones who were “banditos” and street kids. Being unmindful of Uncle Joe’s demands, the concerned nephews continued to pursue their cousin until he finally became converted.

Angered by his son’s change of religion, he denounced the nephews as scoundrels and stated that they were never to show themselves around his house. Troubled by his rash and unreasonable reaction, his son one day approached him and said, “Dad, sit down.

I need to tell you something.” “Go ahead. Tell me. I don’t need to sit down,” he insisted.

“Oh yes,” said his son, “you need to sit down.” Slowly, Uncle Joe took a seat. “Dad, I know that you hate my cousins, but if it were not for them, I probably would be dead.”

“What do you mean?” Asked the surprised father. “You see Dad, I have been a heroin addict, but I could never overcome the habit.

I kept it from you because I knew what kind of a man you are, and if you knew, you would kill me. You have condemned your nephews’ faith, but your religion has never done anything for you.

All they ever offered you were indulgences, a confessional, bowing down to statues, and the paying for your sins. But you have continued to be the same.

It was because my cousins led me to Christ that I finally gained the victory over the habit and found true forgiveness for my sins and a changed life. Startled and shocked Uncle Joe sat almost paralyzed. “What?” He exclaimed.

“Yes, Dad! Christ even gave me the courage to tell you the truth,” his son revealed.

Falling off his chair, the grief stricken man fell broken. With tears in his eyes he said, “If their religion has done that for you, I need the Lord to do it for me.” Uncle Joe accepted the Lord as his Savior and became a changed man.