Christ Keeps Calling Us

 This post originally appeared last June at the Why I am Catholic blog. I wanted to give it a second chance at readers.

This morning was one of those mornings. Nothing went well at home after the boys left for school and I felt bogged down by minutiae. Folding seemingly endless laundry, preparing for a teacher-training class tonight, mopping up from a bloody nose one of my sons had on the kitchen and bathroom floors, hauling in a huge bag of dog food from the back of the van, losing a piece of writing I had spent hours on, making sure I had paid for my sons' summer camps, realizing we didn't have phone service because we had forgotten to pay the bill, seeing one son had left a book on the couch that he was supposed to bring to school and on and on. I was irritable. I was self-involved. I really just wanted this part of the day to be over.


Then Christ intervened. A little after 12 noon, I pulled out of the driveway to drop my son's book off at school. My mind filled with my own to-do list, I turned on the radio, barely listening as I turned a corner to  head  downtown. The sight before me woke me up. In the humid summer air, an elderly man was wheeling an even older man down the street. I thought: these are the faces of Christ, breaking into my life. And suddenly, I became aware of the song that was playing.

It was the Moody Blues' song: Tuesday Afternoon. "Tuesday afternoon, I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way. It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away."

Christ was calling to me. I realized that, but I chose not to listen. I thought - well, the DJ put that song on because it is Tuesday afternoon. Of course he did. And I have seen that pair before, traveling down the street. This is all a coincidence.

I kept driving toward my son's school. As I turned another corner, I saw another person in a wheelchair. This time, it was a young boy, waiting at a bus stop with his mother. The tune on the radio was heading into its final refrain: "Something, calls to me. The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why? Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh."

About half an hour later, I was sitting in my parish center with my School of Community friends. We take turns reading out loud from various CL writings. Part of the passage from Fr. Julian Carrón's writings that I was asked to read today said this: "Life challenges us! ...I am more and more glad that I have been spared nothing and that I must face the same issues as everyone else, because this is the opportunity for me to verify the faith and to grow in coming to terms with everything that happens."

See the painting above, "Christ in the Clock" by Marc Chagall? Christ is part of our time and also beyond it. I pray I will listen when He calls and that an awareness of His presence graces me with peace and gratitude.