Small Mercies

This has been a doozie of a week. I think the father of lies threw himself into overdrive in an attempt to get to me. It started with one of my subordinates suddenly and quite unexpectedly launching into a vicious personal attack on me Tuesday evening. I was so stunned I hardly knew what to say. I could have disciplined the person, but chose to do nothing immediately except walk away and wonder what had happened. The following day, a surgeon suddenly and unexpectedly ripped into me, ending our phone conversation abruptly by slamming the phone down. I didn't know what to make of that either. I asked the priest to say a prayer for me yesterday morning after Mass before I headed off to work. "You-know-who is working overtime at my job," I told him and he understood.

In the midst of all this drama, a friend who belongs to another parish emailed me to say that her pastor had seen my son at church and wondered if he'd like to be an altar server. My son does not normally go to Mass with me on Sundays because he doesn't have the patience for the Latin Mass so he either goes with my husband or by himself to the church down the street. Father went so far as to ask if I thought Matthew had a calling. You just never know when God is going to hold out His hand and offer you help getting to next rung on the ladder. I was so saddened by the behavior of the two people at work and then I got this email and suddenly, none of the nonsense mattered.

I also prayed to God and to St. Rita that I would be able to reconcile with the two people in question. Yesterday, the subordinate asked to speak to me and told me she'd been sick for two days about what happened. Apparently, she was feeling ultra-sensitive and she took something innocent I said to mean something entirely different. We were both happy to bury the hatchet. As for Dr So and So.... I ran into him today and told him I'd lost the hearing in my right ear. "From what?" he asked, concerned. "From some fool slamming the phone down in my ear." He turned fifty shades of purple and walked away, muttering "you'll get over it." Apparently, he is feeling miffed because I didn't confide my future plans to him and he's feeling neglected and abandoned. He didn't choose an appropriate way to demonstrate his feelings, but there's no point in dragging something out. I extended my pinky finger to him, like I used to do with my best friend when I was 7 years old, and he extended his back and we made up.

Tomorrow evening, our pastor is coming to dinner. I've never had a priest over for a meal before so I've been in a panic. Nothing around the house looks clean enough or neat enough. I tried to get my mother to take the dogs for the night, but she wouldn't bite. I should have taken off today to get more of the house in order, but we have a big conference happening tomorrow for one of our surgeons and I had to get things ready today. Everything that could go wrong did, with one calamity happening after another. But with God's help, it all worked out. I had hoped to work a half day today, but as it turned out, I couldn't leave until nearly 5, so the work I intended to get done had to wait until tonight. On top of it all, my husband started getting the powder room ready to be repainted, but he lost track of time, so now the walls are primed but not painted. I was ready to throw his belongings into the middle of the street when I got home, but then who'd be around to help me with the heavy lifting tomorrow? My oldest is very entertained by all this. "What, a priest can't use an unpainted bathroom?" she laughed. Which leads me to the next moment of grace.

Amid all the turmoil of this week, the oldest asked me to help her with a project she's taken on. In return she promised to go to confession and Mass. OK, so she probably won't go to the Latin Mass with me, but the fact that she'll go at all is an answer to a prayer I've been praying for a long time. So try as he might, the father of lies did not succeed in driving me further from God. Thank you Jesus.