Unexpected guests

The more unexpected the guest, the greater the welcome.

I returned to Effingham yesterday morning from Springfield to sort through a week's worth of mail (it's amazing how much of it is junk) and work on a homily (which wasn't quite accomplished).

Midafternoon I took a phone call downstairs in the rectory. At the end of the call I heard a quiet "tap, tap, tap" on the breeze way door that connects to the backyard and the church. We only rarely have visitors to the front door of the rectory (they go to the office now) and we never have visitors to the backdoor.

There was a wedding in the parish yesterday afternoon so I presumed the knocker was a member of the wedding party. I was rather surprised, then, when I saw the man who knocked was in a t-shirt and gym shorts. He was on his way out but turned when he heard me and my astonishment and joy couldn't be contained. I'm told that the expression on my face was "priceless." It was Rob. We were roommates in college and I sponsored him through the RCIA.

He lives outside of Nashville now and has moved around quite a bit in the past few years. Neither he nor I are the best of keeping in contact so we don't see each other too often. I spent a day or so with him a couple of years ago, but that was the last time we saw each other. We do speak on the phone occassionally, and I hope to make this more frequent now.

It was so good to see him!

He and his wife and their three children (the oldest of whom is five and remembered me from my last visit) were in Chicago this past week for a wedding. When they realized that Effingham was only forty minutes off their route home, they decided to pop into the parish and pay a visit.

Rob sent me an e-mail on the road to ask for my cell phone number (he seems to change his cell phone as often as he changes his e-mail address and didn't have my number in his phone). I had just left the parish to visit with a priest in a neighboring town and missed his e-mail.

As it happened, Rob knocked on the door at just the right moment; fifteen seconds later and I would have been back upstairs where I wouldn't have heard the known (nor would I have heard the doorbell). I count it a gift of Divine Providence.

After visiting with them for a bit (which I was why no homily was prepared and typed this weekend), I had Mass yesterday evening at our mission parish so they went to Mass there. Afterwards we paid a visit through the drivethrough of Culver's and returned home to the rectory, staying up later than we should have, but it was well worth it.

Sadly, they had to get back on the road this morning. I hope they pop in unannounced again!