STORY 4

151- SINCERITY
In one of the trips of Gulliver, he arrives to an island where the horses that dwell there talk and think. The
horses are led by only their reason. Gulliver explains to them how the men are, and he tries to tell them
what a lie is like. But the horse don't understand how a person can say one thing and think another
different thing at the same time. (7-SR-SIM.DOC)

152- GENEROSITY
"An ancient legend from the East tells of a kingdom where the subjects were obliged to present a gift to the
King whenever they would meet him. One day a humble peasant found himself in the royal presence empty-
handed. So he cupped a little water in his hand and made this his offering. The King was so pleased by the
devotion of this peasant that he bestowed upon him a bowl full of gold coins." (FFC. V-92) (7-SR-GEN.DOC)

153- GENEROSITY
Alexander the Great with the poor man who begged something from him. (7-SR-GEN.DOC)

154- GENEROSITY
A widow with a lot of children: How do you manage? It is very simple. One day, a long time ago, I told
Jesus: Our Lord, look, I will do the work and you carry the worries. Since then I haven't had to worry about
anything. (7-SR-GEN.DOC)

155- GENEROSITY
Sick woman whom the doctor told that she was going to die. She began to talk with God telling Him all the
reasons why she thought she should not die. God answered all her reasons one by one. At the end the
woman told God: ok, it is up to you. And the fever started to lower. (7-SR-GEN.DOC)

156- PRIDE
"To me, with the admiration I owe myself, wrote Rousseau on the first page of a book. And many other
miserable souls might easily inscribe the same thing on the last page of their own lives." (FFC. II-25) (12-
R3-EX.DOC)

157- EXAMINATION
A man every night use to look under his bed just in case. One day he saw a thief and the thief told him: Are
you not ashamed at your age looking under your bed? (12-R3-EX.DOC)

158- SERVICE
In a small village, in winter, when everything was covered with snow, they found strange footprints. There
was two footprints on one, one smaller than the other. Afterwards they discovered the strange animal. It
was a mum with her son going to the school. Because the snow was too cold (when you walk on the snow if
you don't have good shoes, you first get wet and afterwards you freezy), the mum used to say to the boy:
step in my footprint and it will be less cold. It was the same, but the boy thought that it was warmer. (4-SR-
SER.DOC)

159- SERVICE
Egyptian mummy in a French Musium with an inscription: Thais, priest of Osiris, who never complained
about anything. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

160- SERVICE
Hospital for paralitics, with two different sick people: Luke, who every time that a person went near to him
asked for a syringe to end his life. Enmanuel, a joyful and lovely person, who only could see through the
window a bit of the sky; to a man who put up a mirror to help him to see the garden, he told him: thanks
but there is no need to do this, because God is so good that sometimes I can see a bird through the
window. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

161- SERVICE
Two Gipsies went asking for milk. They got a pot with milk and the older one, ten years old, was carrying
the pot as if he were in a procession. The younger one, five years old, was dancing around him. They were
only half dressed; the younger one was only dressed with a shirt and the older with shorts; with the clothes
of both you could have dressed one. The older told the younger: I'll drink first and then it's your turn. The
younger one was looking at him with his big eyes. He made as if he was drinking but he closed his lips
without allowing any drop of milk to go in. Then he said: now it's your turn, but drink only a bit. The
younger drank a little bit and the older did the same as before. With this dialogue, now it's your turn, now
it's my turn the younger kid drank all the milk, without realising that he drank the whole pot. The older
Gipsy kicked the pot into the air with the simplicity of somebody who did something normal. (4-SR-
SER.DOC)

162- SERVICE
A man after his wife died, was putting her things in order her and found a wedding dress. He couldn't
believe what he saw, because he remembered that when they got married they did the ceremony without
special things, with a normal dress. He remembered their fight about this because she wanted to be married
with a wedding dress. She didn't dare to tell him that she had bought the dress already. His children told
her that some times she used to put on the wedding dress and started crying. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

163- SERVICE
In military academy the soldiers in year 1 used to heat the bed of those in year 2 when they didn't have the
heater on. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

164- SERVICE
There was a man whose wife was very nasty with him. He was tired of her. At the end he died, and at the
following day he appeared to her. She asked him: Are you in heaven? No. Are you in purgatory? No. Then
she asked with fear: Are you in hell? Yes. And, How are things there? Better than with you. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

165- SERVICE
They asked a computer what was better, a broken clock or a clock that is always ten minutes slow. The
computer preferred the broken clock because with the one that is ten minutes slow we will never know the
exact hour, but with the broken clock at least two times day it will give you the right time. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

166- SERVICE
A man was walking on the bush and saw a Royal hawk. This was the first time that he saw this kind of bird.
He thought that it was a pigeon, but it was too big. He took a pair of scissors and cut off its wings, its claws
and its beak. Then he said: now you look like a pigeon. (4-SR-SER.DOC)

167- HUMILITY
A salt doll walked for thousands kilometres until it reached the sea. It was impressed with such amount of
water. Who are you? asked to the sea. Come and you'll find out. The salt doll came into the sea and started
melting. When it was near to be completely melted, the salt doll said: now I know who I am. (7-R3-
HUM.DOC)

168- JESUS
"It happened that, entering the oratory one day, I saw an image which had been procured for a certain
festival that was observed in the house and had been taken there to be kept for that purpose. It
represented Christ sorely wounded; and so conducive was it to devotion that when I looked at it I was
deeply moved to see him thus, so well did it picture what He suffered for us. So great was my distress when
I thought how ill I had repaid him for those wounds that I felt as if my heart was breaking, and I threw
myself down beside him, shedding floods of tears and begging him to give me strength once for all so that I
might not offend him." (St. Teresa) (4-M-HUMA.DOC)

169- DIVINE FILIATION

Somebody asked Saint Francis of Asisi: How can we call God? He answered: God no, it is terrible, it makes
you shiver. We have to call Him Father. (4-R1-FIL.DOC)

170- CHARITY
I was talking with a guy about his job: my company is horrible, the director is unpleasant, the staff are
selfish, the employees are hopeless, the secretaries are ugly, etc.; a disaster. Later on I talked with another
person about his job: the company is splendid, the director is brilliant, the staff is magnificent, I have a lot
of friends. It was the same company! (X-18.DOC)

171- GOD
The story of the Titanic: a ship built in 1912 by the Germans. It was the pride of the Germans. It was the
biggest ship in the world. On the prow they wrote: "nobody, not even God, can sink it". It had capacity for
5.000 passengers with 800 crew. It had everything: theatre, cinemas, swimming-pool, pub, restaurant,
bingo, kindergarten, tennis court, golf course, horse races, cricket, etc. This floating palace was sunk in the
inaugural trip. An iceberg cut a big strip out of it underneath the water. After three hours struggling it sank.
There were only 700 survivors, because there were only 16 life boats, and the water was too cold to swim.
(X-18.DOC)

172- GOD
"St Augustine was walking along the seashore trying to think how he was to explain the mystery of the
Blessed Trinity in his sermon the following day. If only he could think of some explanation, an example, or a
story that would make this mystery clearer to his people. So deeply was he thinking that he did not see the
path ahead of him and he almost stepped into a hole made in the sand my a small child. Into this hole the
child was pouring sea water from a small bucket. "What are you doing?", he asked the little one. "Don't you
see, I am emptying the sea into this hole." Augustine stood still, stopped by a sudden thought. It would be
as easy for this child to put the water of all the seas into the little hole as for him to try to explain the
mystery of the Holy Trinity. That small hole could be compared to the mind of man which could never
understand the mystery of the nature of God." (Lovasik 6) (X-18.DOC)

173- HOLINESS
Gramsci wrote to his girl friend from the prison, were Musolini had him locked up. He says in one of the
letters: "I think I am getting terribly old. For four years now I haven't looked at my face on the mirror. I
cannot tell you about the changes in my face."
- I never had thought of the possibility of not looking at my face in the mirror. It is a horrible
torment. Maybe we would lose less time. The problem is that there are no mirrors for our soul. Maybe this is
why many people don't care about their soul and they live with an empty soul. Some people arrange the
mirror so their soul apperars the way they want it to. (X-18.DOC)

174- HOLINESS
A child was running in his house through the corridor with a blanket, stumbling on it, saying: mummy,
blanket. His mum was sick, and he knew that when he was sick his mum used to bring a blanket for him.
She was too sick and the blanket didn't do her any good. God doesn't need our blanket, but he is asking for
it. If we don't give our blanket to him, He cannot heal us. Because He can heal us with a blanket. (XI-
1.DOC)

175- HOLINESS
Every night, when Alexia was in bed, sometimes sleep, her mother used to make the sign of the cross on
her forehead saying, "my daughter, the Lord bless you and make you a saint." (XI-1.DOC)

176- HOLINESS
Some martyrs died smiling: Saint Policarpus welcomed the soldiers who were coming to arrest him. Saint
Ignacious of Antioch had only one fear: that his friends might succeed in saving him from dying. Saint
Thomas More was joking with the hangman: "help me to go up, because coming down I'll do it by my self."
And he told the hangman to be careful cutting his head without cutting his beard: "my beard hasn't
offended his royalty". (XI-1.DOC)

177- HOLY MASS

"It is said that not very long ago a man was taken prisoner by his enemies and led to a distant part of the
country. Since he was long time there, and his wife did not see him coming home, she thought he was
dead. So she had Mass said for him every week. And as many times as his wife had Mass offered for the
forgiveness of his sins, on each occasions, the chains of his captivity loosened. When he came back later to
his own town, he told his wife with wonderment how on certain days of the week, the chains which bound
him in his cell loosened by themselves. When his wife thought of the times and the days this happened, she
recognizes that he was freed when the Holy Sacrifice was being offered for his soul, as far as she could
remember." (Saint Gregory the Great) (FFC. II-66) (6-M-COSA.DOC)

178- CHURCH
"Already in Saint Augustine's time the pagans were saying: The Church is going to perish; the Christians are
already finished. To which the Saint replied: Nevertheless, I can see you dying every day and the Church
continues to remain standing. announcing the power of God to the succeeding generations." (FFC. II-60)
(11-M-CHU.DOC)

179- DEATH
There was an accident on a cross roads and the owner of a pub right on the corner went out crying: we
need a dead person, we need a dead person. He wanted traffic lights on the cross roads and he thought
that if they had somebody killed, the police would set up traffic lights. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

180- DEATH
A famous American multi millionaire had forbidden his friends to talk about death. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

181- DEATH
In Samoa they bury their relatives in their own back yard. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

182- DEATH
In Rome there is a Franciscan convent with chapels built with the bones of 3.000 Franciscans that had died
in that convent. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

183- DEATH
I remember talking with a couple in a hospital, the husband had lost his leg in a bike accident, and he
nearly died. He was driving his huge bike with other guys a hundred kilometres per hour, and in a turn they
met a car going twenty kilometres per hour; the others managed to avoid the car, but he couldn't because
they were going on a group. She was telling me that now a lot of things had lost their sense. Before, they
used to fight over silly things, like whether to put a table here or there, or to go to this place or to another.
Now this accident had united them more. He told me that he had discovered his wife again. Actually, he told
me that he had lost hope (a young fellow with two kids, a yuppy, without a leg) and the founder of Opus
Dei appeared to him, held his hand and he recovered his hope. Before, he wanted to die. He told me: the
Founder of Opus Dei has been sitting on this bed. He went on: Mate I am another guy. He said that
whenever he recovered he would go to Rome to give thanks to the Founder of Opus Dei. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

184- DEATH
We don't need to do what Sarah Bernhardt did who had a coffin in a room with four candles on the corners.
She used to put on a white dress, light the candles and lie down inside of the coffin. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

185- DEATH
There was a meeting with top guys in a bank, and they were discussing a plan for the next 5 years. The
plan was perfect, with everything well planned. You know that the bankers are very prudent people. They
cannot play with the money of others. They had planned every possibility. In the middle of the meeting, one
of the bankers said: we have planned everything, but we have forgotten one possibility. They said: it's
impossible, everything is well planned; we have been working during one year to have the plan ready. He
replied: Yes, but you have forgotten that in this five years every one of us might die. There was a perfect
silence. They hadn't planned it and it is the most common thing. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

186- DEATH
A King wrote his will and started it saying: if sometime I die... (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

187- DEATH
I remember a weekend magazine in Spain used to interview different people every week with the same
questions. Most of the questions were silly, like about the colour you like most, the best flower, your
favourite person in history, etc. There was one question that I always used to read: how would you like to
die? There were different answers like these: without realising about it, suddenly, sleeping, no way, in
peace, one guy: the last one, an officer in the army: fighting, etc. But not many people said: in the grace of
God. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

188- DEATH
Saint Thomas Aquinas, the zenith of wisdom, his sister asked him: what is the most important thing here on
earth? To die in the grace of God. I can not understand how people go to bed in the state of mortal sin. (XI-
DE-SR.DOC)

189- DEATH
Oscar Wilde, just when he was dying, with signs said that he wanted to become Catholic. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

190- DEATH
Mother Teresa will never forget what a leper dying in her arms told her after receiving the last sacraments:
I lived like an animal, but I am dying like an angel. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

191- DEATH
Sometimes Don Bosco used to give a note to the boys that were living with him: if you die tonight, what
would happen? (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

192- DEATH
One night Don Bosco said to his students: make a good examination of conscience, because one of you
won't wake up tomorrow. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

193- DEATH
Saint Charles Borromeo saw a painting where death was painted as a skeleton with a scythe. He asked
them to get rid of the scythe and paint a gold key: death will open the gates of Heaven. (XI-DE-SR.DOC)

194- INTERIOR STRUGGLE

"A mountaineer was climbing towards a shelter high up on the mountain. The refuge, which was simple and
rough-hewn, was very welcoming. Very soon he noticed some words written above the fireplace, words that
he felt completely identified with. My place is at the summit, they said." (FFC. IV-14) (11-R2-IN.DOC)

195- INTERIOR STRUGGLE

Nagai writing his books and letters in bed. He was invalid in bed for six years. "Sometimes I feel that if I
write another page I'll collapse with exhaustion. But I finish it and I feel ready for more!" (Paul Glynn, "A
song for Nagasaki", p. 146) (11-R2-IN.DOC)

196- INTERIOR STRUGGLE

"It is said of Saint Thomas Aquinas that he was a man of few words. One day his sister asked what was
needed in order for her to be a saint. Without pause he answered: to want it." (FFC. IV-94) (11-R2-IN.DOC)

197- COMMUNION
It impressed me a lot, when giving communion in the parish, I saw a Samoan woman receiving communion
in the hand, kissing the host before consuming it. (SAMOA.DOC)

198- JOY
Somebody told me: I made a resolution; I am going to put in my bedroom a drawing of a face smiling, to
remind me that I have to smile. (SAMOA.DOC)

199- APOSTOLATE
In a nursing home in Samoa, a blind man was pushing a paralytic in a wheel chair. The paralytic was
guiding him, and the blind man was helping the other to move. (SAMOA.DOC)

200- PRIESTHOOD
A bishop was giving catechism to children and one of them asked him for something. What do you want? I
would like you to make me a priest. Why? To carry always the key of the tabernacle in my pocket. Why do
you want the tabernacle key. To be the lord of Jesus. (Eugi 614) (II-14-P.DOC)