"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" #39

"ARE YOU AMY, THE YOGA TEACHER?"

Back in February I got a text that simply read "Are you busy now?" I did not recognize the number so I answered "no" thinking they would text back and let me know who had sent the text. I got another text that said, "Are you Amy, the yoga teacher?" I wrote back, "No, I am a Catholic priest  in Louisville!" She wrote back, "Thanks for your reply. You are a polite person." We texted back and forth for a while. She said her name is "Kathy." She is 37 years old. She is an atheist originally from Indonesia, immigrating here 6 years ago, now working in Los Angeles as the owner of a clothing import company. She was certainly curious about this "wrong number" she had texted. We texted back and forth for a while, until I said I needed to go and she had to go to lunch. I did share with her that I had been invited to lead a priest retreat in her country a few years ago, but turned it down. Always suspicious of scams, I politely ended it as soon as possible even though she obviously wanted to continue the texting. 

A "WISE SAYING" FROM OVER 31 YEARS AGO?

 

Martha Richardson, former Cathedral Parishioner of mine, sent me this photo of a plate I had designed at Louisville Stoneware when Christy Brown use to own it. I was invited to be part of a fund-raising effort called "Louisville Celebrities" to design a plate to be auctioned off.  Her husband, who worked for a downtown bank, bid on it and got the plate. Below is a 31 year old photo of their family at the time. 

Thirty-one years later, "little Mikey" and his wife are about to have their first baby. Martha pulled the plate out and shared the "wisdom" on the plate with him as a warning! 

Martha, Mike and Mikey all had another good laugh after all these years! 

SPEAKING OF VOCATIONS

 

A  CONFUSING TELEPHONE CALL BETWEEN A CONVENT AND A MONASTERY

"Hello, Brother John! This is Sister Mary! Mother Margaret would like to speak to Father Michael! 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property.  

Luke 16: 1-13 

Let me be perfectly clear, right up front. I’m not against money and neither is God. The sin in this gospel is not about the rich man being rich. The sin in this story is about his servant's irresponsible use of his master's property. In fact, the responsible use of money (one's own or others) is an important part of the spiritual life. I taught the importance of responsible personal financial planning to would-be-priests at St. Meinrad Seminary before I retired. 

I insisted that they develop a savings plan for retirement to be implemented immediately with their first salary check. I even gave each of them $100.00 from the stipends I received from leading priest retreats all over the country to open their own Individual Retirement Account. I asked them to take the salary and benefits they will receive as a priest and create a budget showing how to lower expenses, how much they will give to charity, how much they will need to pay off loans, how much they would owe in Social Security taxes and how much they want to save each month for retirement. (By the way, last Tuesday I got the annual pledge card that every priest gets for this year’s annual Catholic Services Appeal.) The amount saved, I told those would-be-priests, is not as important as the consistency and discipline of personal financial management. Anything else, these days, I believe, is irresponsible! I started saving in 1970, the year I was ordained, by opening a Christmas Club account, even when a priest’s salary was $90 a month! At that, I was able to save $5.00 a week! When Christmas came, I never spent it, but kept saving it toward long-term goal of owning my own place in 45 years when I retired.  

Even Jesus had a designated treasurer for his band of disciples. Sadly, he is an example of what Jesus teaches us today not to do. It wasn’t the money Judas held that was bad, it was his attitude toward it. The money he was entrusted with got more of his attention than it deserved and his obsession with it finally took him down!

As I said, I am not against money and neither was Jesus. So, all of you investment professionals can sit back and relax because you’re not in for a verbal beating. Besides, I expect there are a few collection baskets around here somewhere, all greased up and ready to go, so I am not about to bite the hands that feed this place!

Even the old expression “Money is the root of all evil,” is a mistranslation of the original Greek in I Timothy 6:10. The actual translation is not "money is the root of all evil,” but “the love of money is the root of all evil.” What God is against is the misuse of money, the obsessive accumulation of money for its own sake, the dishonest acquisition of money and the selfish use of money.

One famous Hollywood comedian once joked, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” Personally, I have been happy with money, and I have been happy without it. It is certainly not the passion of my life or I would certainly have gone into something besides priesthood. Even at that, I know for a fact that poor people can be greedy. It’s not how much money you have, but your attitude toward it! With all this said, my job is to deal with this Scripture and see what it has to teach us today, whether we are rich or poor!

To teach us how to be clever and imaginative about discipleship, Jesus tells a strange parable about a rich man’s deviously clever steward. This steward, the one in charge of managing the rich man’s property, was reported for squandering his master’s money. Finding out about it, the master calls his steward in to fire him. Knowing he was about to be fired, the steward does something quite clever to ingratiate himself with those who owed money to his master. He slashed their bills, one by 50% and another by 20%. By doing this, he made friends with them, hoping they would take him in, once he lost his job. When the parable ends, even his master commended his devious steward for his slickness.

Jesus tells his listeners, “Would that you would be as clever about living and promoting the faith as this crooked servant was in taking care of his own future after being fired!” Jesus is not teaching us to imitate the dishonesty of this steward, but to imitate his dedication and cleverness when it comes to living our faith. He says it this way. “The worldly are much more clever than the other-worldly in dealing with their own kind.”

No, God is not against money, but the obsession with accumulating money, money dishonestly acquired and the selfish use of money. What Jesus says is this: “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be given to you besides.” “You cannot serve two masters. You will either love one and ignore the other or be devoted to one and ignore the other.” So, Jesus teaches us to be obsessed with the kingdom of God first and then we will have what we need. Be obsessed with making money and you will very likely have little else. If you are obsessed with money or you are susceptible to getting it in a crooked way or use it, not for the common good, but for your own good, you are treading on dangerous water!

Over the years, I have been exposed to several people that the world would call rich. Yes, a few tend to be flashy, wasteful and selfish, but most seem to know money’s limits, to live more modestly than they would have to, to be more willing to share their money and more willing to take responsibility for using their money for the good of the whole community. They seem to understand the words of Jesus when he said, “To whom much is given, much is required.” They know that with wealth comes responsibility. They are the ones who give generously of their time, heir talent and their treasure to the various charities around our community.  I had the opportunity of serving on the J. Graham Board Foundation Board for two terms. We gave away millions of his dollars. I learned from that experience how hard it is to give away money wisely, where it can really lift people up without making them dependent.  

We are challenged today to heed the wisdom of Jesus. “Knowing how to live” is always more important than “making a living.” When “making money” is at the heart of your life, you are on a slippery slope. We all have to “make a living,” but knowing how to “have a life” is always more important, no matter how much or how little we “make.” If your highest priority is your relationship with your family, your friends and the world at large, I believe the resources you need will always be there for you. In fact, I have discovered personally that the more generous I am, the more I have to be generous with! Being generous has never left me poorer! For me, that truth is a fact of life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" #38

WILHELMINE - A TRUE "PIECE OF WORK"

Wilhelmine Reich King was born in Garisch-Partenkirchen, in the Alps of southern Germany, during the days of Nazi occupation. She was raised in a Catholic orphanage and later married an American soldier by the name of Paul Edward King of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. After the war, she and Paul moved to Louisville Kentucky. 

Because she lived her early life in very "hard times," she was always a fighter, a saver and a survivor. She had an uncanny ability to never pay full price for anything. She would always "intimidate," "negotiate" or get it for "free." She was what I would call a "tough woman" with a "big heart" - but only if she liked you! 

I met Wilhelmine in the summer of 1964, when I responded to an ad in the paper for a basement apartment near St. Joseph Infirmary on Eastern Parkway where I had a summer job. I started out in her basement, but I was invited to stay in their house during holiday breaks from the seminary. Slowly, but surely, they became like my "adopted parents" until they died a few years ago. I presided at both funerals. The following are stories about her that "you just couldn't make up" if you wanted to! I think they prove that Wilhelmine, at least, was a "tough woman with a big heart" and a "survivor" to say the least. Paul, on the other hand, was quiet and submissive.  They had a small restaurant together when they first came to Louisville, but had to give it up after a few years. Wilhelmine had several jobs in her life-time, but Paul had a barber shop downtown until his retirement.  

The first time I met Wilhelmine, she was sitting in an inflated kiddie pool in her back yard. When I told her I was there to look at the apartment for rent, she insisted that I get in the pool with her - I mean really insisted! It may have been the first and last time I was able to tell her "no" - probably because my sister was with me! The first thing I learned about her soon afterwards was that she never took "no" for an answer from anybody! As far as me, she would do anything for me about 50% of the time and embarrass me to death the other 50% of the time! 

One of the things she would do when I was in a store with her was to help herself to samples even though samples were not offered. If it were a department store with bulk candy, she would start eating some of it as I ran to not be see with her! If we were in a grocery store, she would start eating the grapes, all of the grapes, as I ran to another part of the store not be be seen with her. She could get away with about anything she wanted, no matter how embarrassing it would be to anyone with her! 

One thing she was good at, and loved to do, was to return items to the store with no receipt no matter how many years ago she bought them. She would save tags for years, just for that purpose. She bought some sheets for me one time. They were, of course, on sale! They had little teddy bears printed on them. She even put them on my bed for me. When she asked how I liked them, and after I had slept on them for a few days, I said, "They are for kids, but they are OK, I guess, because no one will see them, but me!" The next day, she told me that she had washed them and returned them to the store and got her money back! A few times, she would buy a dress for a special occasion, wear it once and take it back to the store for a refund! How did she get away with all that? She had this way of bullying cashiers and speaking in her heavy German accent until they "gave in" just to get rid of her! She could intimidate them no matter what the return policy was or how long ago she purchased the item. I know because I have watched her do it - always from a distance! 

When she went out to eat in a restaurant, she would fill her purse with sugar packets, salt and pepper packets and paper napkins. She would over-buy shampoo and toothpaste by abusing the coupon system and playing innocent. If it would be a coupon for one free bottle or tube, she would somehow manage to leave the store with multiple bottles and tubes with that one coupon. When she died, she had hundreds of bottles and tubes of outdated beauty products on her shelves. There were two huge bags, bigger than a black leaf bags, of sugar packets she had taken from restaurant tables over several years. 

I remember one time when I left a grocery store in anger and threatened never to ever enter that store with her again. They were giving away little stamps you could collect in a book and then cash the books in for a prize when it was full. I stood behind her as she brow-beat the cashier into giving her multiple stamps. Then she turned around and looked at me and said to the cashier, "Give my little boy some stamps too!" I could feel my face turning red as I walked out of the store to wait for her in the car and give her a tongue-lashing! 

The closets in her poor house were literally stuffed with clothes and other items. She was what I would call and "organized hoarder." You could hardly get into some rooms. She had clothes from Germany that she had brought with her in the 1940s. She would intimidate some of her friends into helping her "straighten stuff out" every year or two. After my first attempt, I refused to get involved because she refused to get rid of anything "in case I might need it." 

Getting her a Christmas present was easy. She liked free food so I would go to the grocery and get a couple of big boxes of various cuts of meat and canned goods and wrap them up. She loved it. Even though there were only two of them, she had two freezers - one in the house and another one in the garage. I always told her that, in a famine, I would head for her house because I would know that it was stuffed with food! 

Se would drive miles out of her way to save $.02 a gallon on gas. One day, we were out in her car and I noticed that the gas needle was on "empty."  I begged her to stop as we drove past two or three gas stations on our way home. We were waiting for a light to change in an intersection and the car stopped under the traffic light right in the middle of the intersection. We were out of gas! Horns were honking and people were driving past us as I got out to help push the car out of the intersection and wait till her husband could bring us some gas. I was so angry at her that day that I waned to choke her right there in the car!  

She had several German friends here in Louisville, some she knew when she was a young adult in Germany. For some reason, she could never get along with all of them at the same time. She was always on the "outs" with one or two of them at all times. They would "make up" and then one or two others would switch places and be on the "outs" for a while. I heard about it as soon as I came in the back door, so I always expected it and never worried too much about it. I knew that the latest "falling-out" was always temporary. 

As much as she aggravated me, she was good to me. She came to all my ordinations. She let me stay at her house at any time. She fed me. She even introduced me as her son and tried to get me to call her "Mama King." I was right there with her when she died. I led both of their funeral services and blessed their graves.  Paul had a peace-filled personality with an innocence about him. Wilhelmine, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. She "ruled" whatever situation she was in and let us all know who was "in charge." Those of us who knew her history, understood that she acted the way she acted because she could never stop being a "survivor!" 

MY WONDERFUL RADIO EXPERIENCE WITH TERRY MEINERS

 

Mr. Terry Meiners and Fr. Ron Knott laughing it up on his WHAS radio show

On September 9, 2025 at 5:00 pm, I was invited by Terry Meiners to participate in an interview on his WHAS 840 - AM Radio program. It all started because I had related a funny story he had  told on his radio program the day the Cathedral of the Assumption cracked during the renovation process while I was its pastor. It was one of the many experiences I had in my fifty-five years of priestly ministry that I tell in my latest book, You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up, that can found on AmazonBooks.com and on my blog posts at  FatherKnott.com 

          

I was a little nervous going in because I had no idea what he would ask, bring up or dwell on during such a live broadcast. I was a lot more relaxed than I thought I would be and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We laughed at some of the stories in the book and covered a few serious subjects with as much humor as we could. I am glad I did it. The responses have been very positive so far! 

The audio can be found somewhere on the WHAS RADIO website.

Father Ron Knott on life as a Catholic priest - Terry Meiners

iheart.com