Payback Time: A Christmas Story, by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, Dec 23, 2025

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

As an early Christmas present to faithful readers, I offer an old column, which originally appeared in the July 2001 issue of Catholic World Report, and has been reproduced on this site, in slightly different form, twice—most recently ten years ago.

Actually this isn’t a Christmas story, except insofar as the climax occurred during the Christmas season. And insofar as it’s a story about a gift—more than one gift, really.

This is not fiction. Proper names and a few other identifying details have been changed, but in every important respect this story is true.

——————————————————

Edna Costello was one of those irreplaceable women who seem to appear in every healthy parish. She was the most active member of the altar guild, the Rosary circle, the parish council, the Bible study, marriage preparation classes, the pro-life league, and the ladies’ sodality. You could find her in church every morning, a half-hour before the early Mass. She would still be there for another hour after the Mass was over: making her thanksgiving, tidying up the pews, saying her Rosary, arranging flowers, making the Stations of the Cross.

During the day Edna did good deeds. If anyone in the parish was seriously ill, she would know within a matter of hours, and send flowers or visit the hospital room. She would bring meals to shut-ins and place phone calls to lonely widows. On a few occasions she even tactfully asked some of the wealthier members of the parish whether they could spare a few dollars for a family that that fallen behind on the mortgage payments. Then in the evenings, more often than not she would be back at church—in the basement, this time—for a meeting of one of the many parish organizations that she dominated. …

Continue reading >>>>>>>>>>>