The Leper’s Praise of God

Father Roy, our dear Josephite friend who worked with us at Easton and who has been these past two years in a hospital in Montreal, learning what it is to be loved, used to tell a story of a leper he met at a hospital up on the Gaspé Peninsula.  The leper complained to him, how could he believe in the love of God?

Father Roy proceeded to tell his favorite story.  First of all there is dirt, the humus from which all things spring, and the flower says to the dirt, "How would you like to grow and wave in the breeze and praise God?"  And the dirt says, "Yes," and that necessitates its losing its own self as dirt and becoming something else.  Then the chicken comes along and says to the flower, "How would you like to be a chicken and walk around as I do, and praise God?"  And the flower assures the chicken that it would like it indeed.  But then it has to cease to be a flower.  And the man comes to the chicken and says to it, "How would you like to be a man and praise God?"  And of course the chicken would like this too, but it has to undergo a painful death to be assimilated to the man, in order to praise God.

When Father Roy told this story he said with awe, "And the leper looked at me, and a light dawned in his eyes, and he clasped my hands and gasped, "Father!" And then we both cried together."