I Hugged an Atheist

It was Thursday morning as usual. I’m at the clinic doing my hour and a half of prayer/vigil while carrying my “Stop Abortion Now” sign.

At about 11:15 a.m., the last of the other vigilers bid me farewell and I was left by myself.

Suddenly a young woman walked across the parking lot from the clinic’s entrance area and she approached me. I started a conversation that became more of monolog by me than an active two way conversation.

I asked her if she was aware of the effects that abortion has on the woman as post-abortion syndrome. She said no. I continued on with my descriptions of the horrors and effects of abortion. I also explained the plight of today’s culture and its secularism. Although she asked only a few questions, she listened with interest.

While our conversation continued for about an hour, I learned that she was twenty years old and she was here in the United States on a working visa living in Salisbury, Maryland. She and a friend whom she chaperoned to the clinic are both from Romania. They are working at a restaurant at the beach.

At one point in my comments, I referred to the Bible. She then asked me with her somewhat broken English what the Bible was. This led me to ask her if she thought that she was an atheist. She responded that she probably was one.

Interestingly, although she seemed to know little about Christianity, throughout our conversation she listened very intently as like a sponge sucking up water.

As our conversation came to an end we discussed that we would probably not ever meet again. So we wished each other well and embraced each other with a big hug.

I certainly experienced the presence of the Lord in our brief relationship.

I Cried Last Night

My spiritual director sometimes makes reference to messages from the Spirit that he senses or encounters in various movies.

Last evening while watching a Hallmark movie entitled “Candles on Bay Street,” I experienced again a sense of our relationship with each other as children of God.

In this remarkable story, several times the song “You’ve got a Friend” written by Carole King in the early 70’s was sung in the movie. This song moved me in a special way.

It is easy to dismiss my experience as a sentimental moment, but I see more than the emotion of the event. I sense the Spirit conveying to me a heartfelt relationship with my fellow pilgrims.

Intelligence, Comprehension and Understanding

While driving home from Mass yesterday with Cassie my granddaughter who has just turned 9 years old, I experienced the wonder of the gifts of the Lord.

Cassie opened the conversation by asking if Catholics were Christians. I responded yes. But then I asked her why she asked the question. She said that her friend Sarah was a Christian but not a Catholic and that she did not believe in the Eucharist.

I explained to her very brief history of Catholicism, Christianity and that the belief in Eucharist was a primary belief that distinguished Catholic Christians from non-Catholic Christians.

So I summed it up by saying that Catholics are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholic.

Cassie responded with “that is like squares and rectangles because all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares!”

Phychological Effect of Abortion

Yesterday I met a man who was very active in the pro-life area of anti abortion ministry. As we talked, he got around to explaining that about thirty plus years ago when was thirty years old, his wife became pregnant with her fourth child. She told him that she did not want another child and she was going to have the child aborted. He said that he told her that he thought that it was wrong but she went through with the abortion anyway.

As he was explaining his story to me, he began to weep. He said that although he had reconciled with the Lord, he was still very troubled by the killing of his unborn child. So often the pro-choice advocates say that there is not a phychological effect of abortion on the mother much less the father.

Regardless of the effects of the evil one in our world, I surely saw the presence of the Lord in this man.

Our Relationship With Each Other

So frequently today we fail to acknowledge our relationship with each other as children of God. I experience this disconnect in everyday encounters with the public whereby many persons fail to say hi/hello or make eye contact and even more profound is their non-response to a verbal greeting from me.

However, during my recent overnight stay in the hospital following my surgery, I did experience the Lord's spirit within those attending to me.

While in the surgery recovery room for eight hours and then throughout the night, I would reach out for the attendee's hand. If there was a lack of response, I would say "hold my hand." In all cases, the response was remarkable. A sense of calmness and peace was evident during these moments or minutes of wordless communication.

Although I only saw some of these attendees but once, my encounter with them was one of a sense of presence of the spirit of the Lord between us.