36- Under the Rain

 

St-Takla.org Image: An old man with an umbrella under heavy rain, by Amgad Wadea. صورة في موقع الأنبا تكلا: رجل عجوز مسن مع مظلمة (شمسية) تحت المطر الغزير، رسم أمجد وديع.

Around 6:30 PM, I said to the Bishop, “Let’s move now to the Catholic Bishop’s residence as our meeting is at 7 PM and it’s raining heavily. Maybe we’ll have to drive slowly.”

He started being late saying, “What will happen if we are late a quarter or half an hour?”

I said to him, “I’m not used to being late, but if you aren’t ready I can go and apologize on your behalf.”

At last he came with me and at seven exactly we were there. As the bishop opened the door of the car he found that the catholic bishop left his palace and waited for us in the garden under the heavy rain. The bishop was surprised and said to me, “You were right, we were going to be late while the old bishop was standing in the heavy rain.”

Why don’t we respect others and never be late even for a second? For being late means you don’t respect others’ precious time.

This reminds me of a story that a priest told me:

“I went with twelve persons to a monastery in the states. The monastery is around 1000 Egyptian Acre, only 250 Egyptian Acre is used. To my surprise is that though the monastery is huge in distances, yet all the monks along with their father gather every day seven times from 4:30 AM to 8:15 PM for prayers and they’re all fixed, they’re always on time. Once our group was late for supper only three minutes. I was surprised to find the monks with their father waiting for us to start praying. We were ashamed of ourselves. I learnt to be on time or even before it as it reflects respect to others as well as to oneself.

→ English translation of the story here at St-Takla.org: تحت المطر الغزير!

A rich poor

Short Stories (Stories for the Youth) Books by Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty

I left a blessing to my daughters!