Three blessings of the season: the gifts of friendship, love and gratitude
The offer of friendship from Mary Olges, left, to Kathie Ponder has created a strong bond between the two members of St. Joseph Parish in Corydon. (Submitted photo)
(The Criterion has invited our readers to share a special thank-you with someone who has influenced their lives in a positive and powerful way. Here is the sixth part of a continuing series. See part five)
By John Shaughnessy
Friendships begin in many ways, and one of the special paths to that gift happens when someone takes the time to notice a stranger who is struggling.
Eight years ago, Kathie Ponder felt at a loss in her faith and her life when she stopped her car in the parking lot of St. Joseph Church in Corydon. Walking inside the church, the then-55-year-old non-Catholic wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find there. But she found it when Mary Olges approached her with a smile.
“Mary talked with me and made me feel welcomed,” recalls Ponder about that simple outreach that started a dramatic change in her life, helping her overcome her anxieties and the scars of past relationships.
“I attended several Sundays, and I was then invited to the Christ Renews His Parish [CRHP] program. My life was forever changed that weekend,” Ponder says. “I had attended various churches my whole life, but I never found Jesus Christ until I found the Eucharist.”
That experience led her to a desire to join in full communion with the Catholic Church through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program.
“Mary and her husband Jack walked with me through every step of RCIA,” Ponder recalls. “She helped me learn the prayers and feel at home. I began to understand so many things I had read and studied in the Bible. The Bible became a living word. And Jesus living in the Eucharist, living in me.
“During my journey, I got deathly ill. Mary and several church members came to my work to pray over me. To my work! This was the day before a serious surgery. The healing process was long, but Mary and the other church ladies cared for me.”
Ponder marvels at how Olges “has never left my side” since that first meeting in church.
“I have lost my mother, and she has become a second mother to me,” Ponder says. “She is the perfect role model for me and many others. Mary attends several Masses weekly and goes to adoration faithfully. She goes out to area nursing homes—visits and calls on all in need.
“I am 63 now. I feel great peace. I have lots of friends, and I no longer suffer with anxiety disorders. Mary Olges took me by the hand and didn’t let go. I am so thankful for her.”
A gift of love
The gift would become the greatest blessing of Starlette Ragsdale’s life, a gift she initially didn’t want.
“I never wanted children,” she recalls. “But God decided I did.”
It didn’t take long for her to connect with God’s plan.
“I prayed so hard for the baby I was carrying, because I was told I would probably lose her to complications while I was pregnant,” Ragsdale says. “Each day, I prayed often while touching my tummy to assure the baby was moving.
“Nine months later, I had a baby girl, Christina—healthy and vibrant and beautiful—who has become my biggest blessing of my life. She is exactly who taught me what love is.”
The gift of friendship, part two
When Luretta Clark began thinking about someone who has had a positive impact on her life, her thoughts immediately turned to a friend she has always trusted and who has a gift for making people smile.
“I instantly knew Dave Young was my answer,” says Clark about her friend, a fellow longtime AT&T employee who also served as a local representative for the Communications Workers of America labor union 4900.
“We worked together for years, and he was a union person that we all trusted and respected,” notes Clark, a member of St. Bartholomew Parish in Columbus. “It was always a treat to see his smiling face. He had a gift for lifting our spirits with his humor and kindness.”
Her friendship with Young—a member of St. Louis de Montfort Parish in Fishers, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese—has continued after their retirements.
“He has kept in touch, and he has shared his family with me by texts, photos and funny stories,” Clark says. “I have never seen a man so dedicated to his wife, children and grandchildren. But most of all, he loves God and the Catholic Church. He has had such an impact on my life because he inspires me to a better Catholic. I am grateful to God for his friendship.”
A list—and a lesson—of gratitude
At 81, Stephenie Paquette has a long list of people she’s thankful for, and she uses perfect penmanship on four pages of loose-leaf, blue-lined, white paper to pay tribute to them.
She starts with her mother “Frances, a single mother in the 1940s who gave me every advantage she could—sent me to Catholic school and made sure the two of us attended Mass every Sunday, holy day and major feast day, as well as receiving the sacrament of penance regularly.”
She praises the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg for the way they guided her Catholic education, developed her spiritual life and fueled her desire to be an elementary school teacher.
She fondly recalls the encouragement of a college professor “who informed me I have ‘a great capacity for love,’ which I have recounted many times over the years when I needed that reminder during times when I didn’t feel so loving.”
She salutes the many friends who “have shown me how to love the Lord and his word in ways I was not familiar with before.”
She remembers the international students she has invited to stay in her family’s home and the people of different countries and cultures she has met through her travels, thanking them for “showing me how we are different and the same simultaneously,” leading to friendships that she treasures.
“Nowadays, I am particularly grateful to those who minister to me in my old age—my husband, medical personnel and my children and grandchildren,” notes Paquette, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Indianapolis.
Her note also includes a lesson in gratitude—and the way to live it.
“Of course, so many of these people are no longer on this Earth, but that does not diminish my gratitude for their part and influence in my life. I did try, when I was able, to tell them in person how they were a positive part in my life.
“I have much to be grateful for every day. God has placed so many in my path, and I am glad that I could learn from each of them.” †
