Several years ago, I had the opportunity to interview a 109-year-old woman who was living in a local nursing home and had just celebrated her birthday by riding around the mall parking lot in a vintage Model-T Ford. The fact that she was 109 was remarkable in and of itself, but what really amazed me was the fact that she used to babysit for the children of Mr. and Mrs. Al Capone.
Yes, THE Al Capone, old Scarface himself. Public Enemy Number 1. This woman had been inside his house and lived to tell the tale. Naturally I couldn’t wait to ask her about the legendary gangster and take down all of the juicy details that came with such a nefarious connection. So when I had the opportunity, I jumped at it. “What was Al Capone like?” I queried.
“He was a very nice man,” she replied as though we were talking about a random next-door neighbor. “He paid me the going rate for babysitters at the time and made sure I got home OK. He was very kind to me.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I felt a little let down. I guess there was a part of me that knew he didn’t come home with a loaded Tommy gun or pay her with the money he made bootlegging. However, given the man’s image, you can’t blame me for thinking that way. Let’s face it: It’s really hard to imagine Al Capone acting like a normal father, a tender husband or to even picture him as the son of hard-working Italian immigrants who came to the US in 1893 and settled in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn.
But all baddies have a beginning and another side to them that is often lost to history. Today’s gospel reminded me that good does not beget evil and that evil cannot beget good. Yes, Al Capone committed a number of crimes in his lifetime, but chances are he didn’t start out that way. He came from a good tree and he was reared to be good fruit with a solid foundation. But sometimes, the fruit leaves the branch or the vine to early and as a result, its foundation is shaky. The rain may fall on it the same way it falls on the tree, but the fruit does not receive the same type of nourishment from it. It’s disconnected from the source and vulnerable to the elements, which can distort it from the inside out until it is no longer recognizable.
Conversely, the fruit of a rotten tree has an unstable foundation from the start. If it blooms at all it’s a miracle, but even when it does, it’s often twisted and misshapen as though it knows it’s already doomed. Though it may long to grow and be healthy, its unhealthy environment stops it from rowing against the tide and ultimately it gives up the fight.
Luckily, most of us are good fruit that come from good trees. We are given a good foundation and it’s up to us what happens beyond that. Some of us have what it takes to see the good in others while some focus on the twisted until we only see a thug. The important thing to think about while examining the fruit of others is to ask what does God see when He looks at us?
Hopefully He smiles and says, “The fruit doesn’t fall far from the Tree.”
Today’s Mass Readings: 1COR 10: 14-22; PS 116:12-13, 17-18; LK 6: 43-49
