By Faith not Sight

After Mass one Tuesday, two older women walked up to me. One said, “I need to light a candle, and she needs a priest.” I must have given the announcements for the young adult’s group at church that week. In response to the woman’s word, I thought to myself, “One, I will forgive you the harshness of that tone, Two, those are two impossible tasks. ” The reason I said to myself, those were two impossible tasks were once Mass was done the priest unvested and high-tailed out of the sacristy, and there were no more available candles in the back of the church.

Then, I heard a small voice say to me, “For nothing is impossible for God. Go the sacristy.” Since I had no better idea, I said to the ladies, “Let’s go to the sacristy,” smiling. I asked God, “Why the sacristy?” Then,

I was reminded about the matches there to light the candles on the altar. So, I turned to the ladies following me and said, ”There are matches there.” When we got to the front of the church, I went into the sacristy to ask my friend who was the sacristan for help. He told me that father had already left and gave me the box of matches. I gave the woman the box of matches and she went off to find matches.

Later, she met me and her friend back where I gave her the matches. They explained they were from the northeast US down here for a procedure for the friend and she wanted Anointing of the Sick before the procedure the next day. No priest was coming from the rectory. I went to the other door, had to wait for something that felt really long but couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes before a priest came out.

I explained what had happened to the women. The priest was going to dinner but called the people who were having him saying he’d be a little late and followed me into the sanctuary, where he celebrated the anointing of the sick for the woman.

This was really nice to see how God took care of His daughter that night. She was grateful to have itbefore the procedure.