"No good deed goes unpunished"... so the saying goes.
Last Friday afternoon the parish office received an anonymous phone call from a man who identified himself as a concerned grandfather. Apparently his grandson had burglarized a house and the grandfather, concerned to put his grandson on the straight and narrow, wanted his grandson to return the stolen merchandise. Of course he wanted to do this anonymously. Would we be so kind as to accept the merchandise and contact the family whose home was burglarized so that the stolen goods could be restored to the rightful owners. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I agreed. After all the church is supposed to be the "refugium peccatorum". For you non-Latin scholars that means "refuge of siners."
On Sunday evening the victims of this crime appeared on my doorstep to claim their stolen goods. Somehow I had supposed they would be grateful to have their merchandise back and we'd all live happily ever after. You know "All's well that ends well." Unfortunately, that's not how things went down.
Apparently the family had been on a vacation cruise when the burglary took place. Their home had been trashed and a lot more had been stolen than the few items that had been dropped off at the church office. Understandably the family was quite upset, not only about having their home trashed and their personal property stolen, but with me for not having contacted the police. I tried to explain to them that we are a church; we try to help people who have gone astray, but they weren't having none of that. It was the anger talking, and I can't say I blame them.
These people suffered over $20,000 of damage to their home and lost property. I'd be pretty tee'd off too. Some of the damage was so senseless. For example, they twisted and broke the father's eye glasses, threw everything from the closets onto the floors, etc. Now that's just plain meanness.
Please pray for this family that God bring healing into their lives. They have suffered not only the loss of property, but have been injured emotionally, their privacy violated and their sense of security taken away. Their youngest child is too scared to even sleep at home tonight.
I hope the burglar who escaped with his anonymity reads this blog, although I seriously doubt that, and know how much pain and suffering he has brought to this family.
Once again, let's pray that God brings healing and comfort to their lives and that the insurance companies make good on all their financial losses.
I'll have to think long and hard before I allow myself to get involved in something like this in the future.
