Unexpected Offering

by Carolyn
(Maine)

So here my husband and I are at church ---- we are at the time in the mass where the offering basket is passed from person to person and pew to pew starting from the front pew. The offering basket is where you put your weekly monetary offering to the church. Some people choose to use the envelopes provided and then put cash or a check into the envelope for the offering. Some people just prefer to put cash directly into the basket. I think there is also an option of electronic transfer of money—too high tech for me. Others just aren’t prepared to give any money and that is ok too. So here the basket goes from person to person as those that choose place their offering into the basket then pass it to the person beside them so they can do the same. During this offertory there is always music and singing AND basket passing. So this morning the basket was held up a bit when a little girl—she looked about 2 years old. This cute little 2 year old was sitting on her dad’s lap and holding onto her family’s offertory envelope. She waited for the basket to come her way. Sometimes with little children they just don’t want to give up the envelope and put it into the basket. Sometimes with 2 years olds everything is “mine.” So the basket arrives to this little girl’s dad and he tells her to drop the envelope in the basket. The little girl would not let go of the envelope. Her dad tried to gently shake it out of her hand—it just wasn’t happening. So this dad whispers something into the little girl’s ear and gently pushes the envelope out of her hand and into the basket—the dad then hands the basket to my husband so he could put our envelope in too. But wait—What ?—the little girl’s dad asks for the basket back------ so my husband hands the basket back to him. The little girl’s dad reaches in the basket and grabs something out of the offertory basket—it looked like a tissue but it wasn’t --- hmm----no wonder the little girl didn’t want to let the envelope drop into the basket—she had wrapped the envelope around a sock she had removed from her little foot and that sock had gone in the basket along with the envelope. Once the sock was retrieved the basket moved along once again from person to person and pew to pew.