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adrift
Guest
Thank you for such a wonderful witness. Praying for you God Bless YouHello Friends:
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I want to thank you for your prayers and for remembering me. Thanksgiving should be every day of the year. Every day God gives us something for which we should show gratitude. He always puts people in our way who are like precious stones. That’s how I feel about many of my CAF friends. You have been kind and supportive throughout my illness.
Just to fill you in, without boring you, I have good days and not so good days. Today was great! I’m still in a wheelchair. The doctors believe that I may not make much progress in the area of walking. However, it does not bother me at all. I’ve learned to manage the wheelchair. Just last night I was listening to music on the computer and I started to move to the rhythm using my chair. It gave the novices quite a laugh.
For those who don’t know, I did manage to get to Philadelphia and to the Holy Father’s mass. It was incredible. I have never been in such a crowd. There must have been close to one million people. Everyone was very pleasant and helpful. When the mass began, you could hear a pin drop on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where the mass took place. I had a good spot. From my wheelchair I was able to see the Holy Father at the altar and at the pulpit. I also met people from different parts of the country, not all Catholics. Many people of many faiths came out to see and hear the Holy Father.
I loved the train ride. The employees were respectful and happy the entire time we were there. The trains were packed, but everyone behaved like a Christian gentleman and lady.
The most beautiful experience was at Communion time. There were stations toward which you had to move on a line to receive Holy Communion. The station nearest to where we were was on a grassy area, a little difficult to get through in a wheelchair. They tend to get stuck in such areas. A young priest was there with a group of pilgrims. He saw the brothers trying to push my chair to the Communion station. Father approached us and told us to wait. He went to the deacon who was distributing Holy Communion, said something to him and the next moment he was back in front of me with Holy Communion. But his kindness did not stop there. He helped the brothers move my chair through the crowd and the grassy area to a paved area that was more comfortable. When I turned to thank him, he was gone. He evaporated like smoke. I never got to say anything or find out his name. Tonight I thank the Lord for people like him in our world and in our Church.
Moving right along . . . Tonight we had our Thanksgiving dinner. It was a quiet dinner, just four of us. The other brothers are at the other houses. We had a lot of fun. I coached the novices and they prepared the meal. It was awesome. We had turkey, cranberry jelly, candied yams, wild rice with apples, and cream of broccoli soup (homemade), stuffing, veggies, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top. The wine was also great. I only take sips, because I take many medications. But it was great to sit at the table with the brothers, tell stories and laugh a bit.
I hope that all of you have had a great deal of fun and I ask that you keep me in your prayers as we prepare for the Holy Season of Christmas, this Advent. Let’s pray that Christ’s peace will become incarnate in our troubled world, especially in the hearts and minds of those people who are hurting others.
Pray for me.
