Severe Grace - Richard John Neuhaus

There is a story told me when I was very young, by a veteran who said he was there.

     Allied troops were on a ship crossing the English Channel.
For some reason I forgot--perhaps it was torpedoed--the ship was sinking, and fifty or more men were caught in the hold, from which there was no escape.

     A chaplain who was on deck with the other soldiers went down through the one-way funnel to his certain death in order to give Last Rites or otherwise console those who were still alive.

     I have over the years been haunted by that story of what it means to be a minister, a servant, of the One who said, "I have come not to be served, but to serve."

     The veteran who told it to me emphasized that none of the soldiers would have blamed the chaplain had he stayed on the safety of the deck, but neither did they try to dissuade him from his determination to temper fate with grace.

     I have thought about what I would have done were I am his place, and I do not know.

---From As I Lay Dying, by Richard John Neuhaus

.'''whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be a slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."             Mark 10:44-45.