On Friday, August 22nd at 1:05 PM, I had the calling. I got my keys, locked the door of my store, put out the "closed" sign and went to Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral to a funeral. This was not just any funeral, this was the funeral of "the Lord's beggar for the poor", Luscious Newsom, age 93. Much has been written about him this week, for he touched many. He was tireless and worked eighty hour weeks into his nineties. This is my story of a man who may someday become a saint.....truly.

Luscious (sounds like Lew-scious) was a big black man, missing lower front teeth, who wore a ball cap and bibbed overalls. He was a Baptist minister from Tennessee who came to Indianapolis to volunteer at the annual Mozel Sanders Thanksgiving Day dinner. He ended up relocating here. According to one reporter he was quoted as saying, "I need to go up there and teach those Yankees how to love." And teach us he did. He found the Catholic community the most open to his mission of feeding the poor. He preached in our local Catholic churches and got us to pass the hat. So impressed was he by the Catholic outreach that he converted at Easter in 1995 at St. Thomas Aquinas. His mission was supported in our area churches of Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Joan of Arc and Christ The King, to name only a few from the northside. He began the Lord's Pantry. The distribution of the food that he begged grocers to donate was set up on tables on a lot at New York and Elder streets on Saturday mornings. The lines were long of those he served and those who volunteered.

I first met Luscious on Thanksgiving Day, 2006. Like everyone who met this man, he left a profound impression on my inner soul. On that day my husband and I went to see the new "Anna's House" that Luscious had overseen the building of, on that lot, and was dedicating to Anna Malloy and the poor of the near westside of Indianapolis. Anna was a girl born with a rare genetic disorder who helped serve with Luscious from her wheelchair. The house was built to be a community center to serve the needy for medical, dental, and to offer tutoring and of course house the Lord's Pantry that prior had been set up on tables on the lot on Saturday mornings. Three hundred meals were served that Thanksgiving Day. The Indianapolis Colts donated the food and the players came to visit. Luscious led us in prayer and advised the children to respect their parents. Then he bellowed out hymns which warmed our hearts. It was the most wonderful Thanksgiving of my life because I was so touched by everyone coming together and led by Luscious. We returned on Saturday and donated dog food from our store. Luscious was happy to have it and in fact, had not thought of it. We felt that some of the poor were feeding their pets from their table which they could not afford. We will continue to do this.

So, on August 22nd, when I locked the store at the last minute to attend the funeral, I arrived a half hour late to standing room only in the huge cavernous church. Of course no one noticed my tardiness. I arrived to hear the last of the eulogy being given by Governor Mitch Daniels. The Priest began his homily by saying "What brought you here? Did he touch your heart?" (You bet he did!) Luscious not only fed our hunger but he fed our spirit, our faith. Lucious had requested that a donation be taken up, something uncommon at funerals. His portrait smiled down on us as we reached deep in our pockets to give again to his great cause. His wife and daughter sang and played gospel music blending the Baptist with the Catholic among us. His coffin was shrouded in white, a white candle burning brightly as incense was waived over him. We filed out and I noticed Mayor Ballard and priests from every familiar Catholic church. Anna Malloy, who so inspired him and gave him great joy, was not there. She left for Heaven ahead of him on July 31st.

Governor Daniels said it best. In his closing he said "Be sure to tell your children about him. Make him their hero too."