>>Some years ago in Florida, the St Petersburg Times carried a very interesting story about Don Shula, the famous former head coach of the Miami Dolphins football team. When the Miami Dolphins in 1972, to this day, are the only team in the history of the NFL during the Super Bowl era to win the regular season and postseason and Super Bowl. No other team has ever been undefeated with the inception of Super Bowl going back to 1967.

So, the season is over. In June of that summer and one afternoon it was a very raining day. So, Shula who had taken his wife and five children into a very small town in northern Maine. The fact it was raining said, “Let’s go to a movie.” So when they arrived, the house lights were still on in the theater. There were only six people present to watch the movie. When Shula and his family arrived and walked in, all six people stood up and gave Don Shula and the family a standing ovation.

As Don Shula, the famous head coach, sat down, he turned to his wife and said, “I can’t believe this. We’re 1000 miles away from our home in Miami and this very small town, they know about me, the Miami Dolphins and us winning the Super Bowl.” The man came up to Don Shula, “May I shake your hand?” Shula beamed and said, “How do you recognize me all the way up here in this small town in Maine?” The man replied, “Mister, I don’t have a clue who you are. The theater manager told the theater occupants here, unless four more people showed up today, there wouldn’t be a showing of the movie.” It’s a true story.

We listened in today’s first reading from Sirach: My children conduct your affairs with humility and you’ll be loved more than the giver of gifts. Humble yourself. Life has a way of keeping us humble. We need to be able to not always take life so seriously and we must be able to laugh at ourselves once in a while. You know, when we are young, we have dreams of where life will take us. As we grow older, we have moved down roads we never dreamed about. Life has a way, of again, of surprising us. Some good and some not so good.

A great line from the Lennon song: Life is what happened, while I was making other plans. Life is what happened, while I was making other plans. With a guy who said, “When I was young, I had long hair. Now that I’m 70, I’m longing for hair.” To be humble, as Christ teaches humility, is to see one another as God sees us. One contemporary African catechist asks, “Why did God make you?” Answer: Well, God just thought you might like it. We are not put on this earth to see through one another, but rather to see one another through. And no one can go back and start a new beginning. But starting today, we can make a new ending.