Group pays annual tribute to miser who gave all to help needy people

Published: 2008-02-28

WATERBURY, Conn. (CNS) -- A small group of people traveled 140 miles on a recent Monday morning to pray briefly at the snow-covered grave of a man who died before any of them was born. He wasn't related to anyone in the group and he hadn't willed them an inheritance, but he had left them a legacy. Representatives of the worship community at Graymoor, the headquarters of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement in Garrison, N.Y., made their annual trek Feb. 25 to the grave of John Reid, also known as the miser of Waterbury for his frugal ways and as Brother Philip, a tertiary brother of the Atonement. Reid, who died in 1922, was the first and arguably the most enthusiastic member of the Union That Nothing Be Lost, a fundraising effort begun in 1911 by Graymoor founder Father Paul Wattson. The movement is dedicated to practicing self-sacrifice to provide for the needy. It takes its name from the story of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes in the Gospel of John. After Jesus blessed the five loaves and two fish and distributed them to 5,000 men, he told the disciples to "gather the fragments leftover, so that nothing will be wasted."

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