I had spent the first week with Mary and Judith, the two Marian Catechists who introduced me to Cardinal Burke, and Fr.’s Altman and Czerwonka. During the week I had met other people connected to the shrine. There were so many wonderfully kind and faithful Catholics. My heart felt at home.
The Lord had shown me so much favor in fact, that I wondered if He wasn’t opening the door for me to move to La Crosse. Short of a university or convent, I can think of no other place to learn my faith in order to feel comfortable with knowing and sharing it, i.e. evangelizing.
This morning, I woke up with a song in my head. I think this is something everyone experiences from time to time. We get a song in our head that we can’t seem to get it out and over time, it gets to be annoying. Over the years, this has been one way the Lord communicates with me. He uses the songs of my youth. Songs that I listened to on the radio as I grew up. Songs that were in my memory banks on a subconscious level, ready to be accessed when the time was right.
I first started paying attention to these songs about 15 or 20 years ago. I’d be hearing a song in my head but, in the busy-ness of my day, not really paying attention to it until finally it dawned on me that I was hearing something. I’d look up the lyrics on the internet and find that it was relevant to what was happening in my life at the time. Many mornings, I would wake up with a different song in my head. And if the Lord really wanted to make a point, I’d hear the song for days or even weeks.
This morning, I woke up with the song “Gimme a Little Sign” by Brenton Wood. The specific lyrics go like this. Just gimme a little sign girl (Oh my baby) Show me that you’re mine, girl (Oh, yeah).
The night before, I had been at rehearsal for the Schola, the Gregorian Chant choir for the Latin Mass at the Shrine of Guadalupe. The director of which, Dr. Thomas Hunt, I had met only a few days before. He was kidding when, shortly after our introduction, he asked me if I sang.
Knowing my voice isn’t what it used to be, I stammered then admitted, “I used to.” During the conversation, mentioned that I studied music at SMU.
A few moments later, I wondered what had just happened when I heard myself agree to be at rehearsal the following Tuesday. It looked like I had at least one open door to stay in La Crosse.
But when I woke up the morning after my first rehearsal and heard the song, I knew that’s not what was happening, and I felt sad. The song came out of nowhere. It felt like a correction. It felt as if I had deviated from what the Lord had called me to do. I wasn’t supposed to get attached to these wonderful people, or join a choir, as much as I may have wanted to. I was supposed to keep moving.
I felt, not just inadequate for the task of evangelization but downright deaf, dumb, blind and lame. And brain damaged. There is no way I can do this. And I knew it. I knew it because I had tried! Tried and failed. Miserably.
I so longed for the picture in my imagination of being around strong Catholics, learning how to be knowledgeable and strong in the faith and having friends with similar skills and interests, even if my skills were rusty. Those skills along with everything else, couldn’t help but improve in La Crosse. I wanted to stay.
So, I was sad, knowing (or at a minimum, suspecting) that’s not what the Lord had in mind.
I went into the very clean and nicely updated Visitor’s Center/Rest Stop looking for the bathroom. One of the custodians was adding toilet paper to the dispenser when he dropped it. I had noticed that he had trouble walking. He knees were stiff and my first thought was Cerebral Palsy. It rolled toward me and I picked it up handing it to him. He explained that his knees were bad. “Old age.” He explained, as he replaced the roll and left.
I had been mistaken. I should pray for him, I thought. But I didn’t. I walked out to my car and went to get water from my cooler, wondering to myself what I’m doing out on the road if not to pray for people?
I prayed to God, telling Him that I had no faith right now. I only felt sad and disappointed. Then, I remembered a saint, I can’t remember his name, who, only out of obedience to his superior, he faced down demonic powers and did wonderous miracles.
So, I told the Lord, “I have no faith right now. I’ll only go pray for him out of obedience.”
I took with me a bottle of Holy Water from Lourdes (I needed all the help I could get) and went back inside, introduced myself and asked if I could pray for his knees.
Howie sat in his office chair and I knelt in front of him, anointed both his knees with the Holy Water and prayed. After I finished, I got up.
“I hope it helps.” He told me.
My heart sank. He hadn’t experienced anything while I was praying. I left and went about my day.
The next morning, I sat parked in the same Visitor’s Center. A pickup truck came toward me and stopped. It was Howie, but I almost didn’t recognize him without his uniform. I rolled down my window.
He told me that the prayers did help his knees and he just wanted to come and tell me. I thanked the Lord. He drove out of the parking lot and I realized he made a special trip just to let me know.
How kind the Lord is, to encourage me when I need it.
That afternoon, I went to the Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Blessed Sacrament Parish. A young man, late teens or early 20’s knelt. His elbows propped on the pew in front of him, his head in his hands. Then he dropped his head in a kind of desperate, loss of hope kind of a bow. Elbows still on the pew in front of him, his hands waved expressively over his head. I use the term loosely when I call what he was doing “praying.” I could hear his lips moving, pouring out his soul to the Lord in what could be considered frustration, confusion, questioning, pleading.
I sat, mildly distracted from my own praying by his turmoil, so I prayed for him. I prayed for the Lord to be sovereign over his life and whatever situation was causing so much distress. Then I prayed that the Lord show him what he needs to do when the time is right. Somehow the words struck me. They rang in my head over and over. So, encouraged by Howie’s report, I decided to tell him.
I picked up my things but before I left, I went to the pew where he was sitting and got his attention.
With no certainty what he was really praying about, I said, “This may not make any sense but,” I continued, “when the time comes, you will know what to do.”
“That’s what I keep hoping,” he replied.
“You will.” I said. Then, I left.
Sitting in my car a few minutes later, I reasoned that if I had totally gotten it wrong, he would have looked at me as if I were crazy and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
