A Little God Story Involving a Cat

 

    After five long years of attending St Pius Grammar School, Lynn, MA I finally exhaled.  I don’t know how I managed to live so long without breathing.  The day I resumed oxygenating my body and adding my spent breath (co2) to the world’s future global climate change crisis was the day I first encountered Mr. Tom DiLorenzo, 6^th grade teacher, room opposite Miss Pallidino, who was my own homeroom teacher. She was rather an aloof woman with very big blond teased hair kept in the style of many children’s drawings at the time, large on top and then swooping out below the ears like two waves rushing skullward from the sea .  There were all of two sixth grade classes in my particular Catholic grammar school, perhaps a total of 50 sixth graders and we would exchange classes for the various subjects. I don’t recall what Mr. D. taught me academically but I do recall his kind smile and gentle ways.  Somehow or other I knew that my fearful little heart and ego was safe when in his presence.  Up until that day I was firmly gripped by an unspoken, unknown fear of the authority figures that surrounded me at St. Pius, personified by the somewhat menacing black robed nuns and priests.  In those days many nuns wore the full habit and only their faces were visible, not even a wisp of hair on their fore heads in sight.  The priests seemed to me to be of a different species entirely and my intimidation up until meeting Mr. D had been complete.

 

     Mr. DiLorenzo, today is Father Tom DiLorenzo.  He was my first experience of love, outside of the family structure, love given in the form of simple kindness and compassion.  He didn’t yell.   He taught us songs.    C O F F E E   coffee is not for me, it’s a drink some people wake up with, and that it makes them nervous is no myth!   So thanks to their coffee cup they can’t give coffee up!   I wish I could hum the melody for you as it does stick.  Of course there also was the obligatory Kumbayah my Lord and Bridge Over Troubled Waters.  The seventies you know. 

 

     You’re probably wondering when the cat enters the cast of characters in this tale.  I’ll just skip my angst ridden teen years and my dramatic conversion or rather reversion to my childhood faith returning  that is after my many wanderings in the valley of the shadow.

 

Leaping into late summer 1986, I was a young mother of our first child, a daughter of about two years old.  Our little family lived in a quaint old-fashioned town in mid MA. Called Medway. We were never quite sure where it was medway to.    Perhaps medway between Boston and Worcester, or maybe Boston and Providence?  In any case the area was idyllic small town America and hope and youth were restless in my heart. 

 

      That morning I was driving along the main route through town, route 109 to be exact, when I saw a cat by the side of the highly trafficked road staring anxiously across the sea of cars.  As the poor thing looked nervous and confused, I offered a prayer for its protection.  I still pray for all little creatures that look lost and confused having been one myself on too many occasions.  Anyway, the cat abruptly made its decision and dodged headlong into the morning traffic. Somehow it safely reached its destination amidst only a few swerving vehicles. I am always curious as to why small animals wish to go to the other side with so much determination and courage, to the other side of where?  Do they even have a clue?

 

    As it was my habit then and now, to listen to talk radio, I switched on the local Christian radio station.  In Season and Out of Season was the show that I listened to that day.  I believe it is still on air today, over twenty years later.  It was Father Tom Dilorenzo’s show, 15 minutes of faith and passion offered over the airways to the listening ear and yearning heart.  I say passion because I still remember His words spoken to me that day, as if he were actually present to me, even though it was almost 22 years ago.   After his stirring talk, Father Tom continued his efforts to persuade the listener,  “You have the Life of God within You!”    TODAY you must ask God to bring someone to you that you can pour that life into!!!!     Well, driving along busy route 109, baby strapped safely into the car seat behind me, I complied.  I eagerly, ardently, fervently, and with my eyes hopefully still open, obeyed Father’s command and pleaded those very words aloud,  “God bring me today someone that I can pour your life into!”  Then, unexpectedly the sound of the In Season and Out of Season ending melody intruded on my fervent appeal to the Almighty, and then Father Tom’s daily exhortation abruptly ceased and then another voice suddenly replaced Father Tom’s with another, I’m certain, very valuable message.   Never the less, still, gripping my steering wheel, a bit tighter than was probably was necessary, I repeated my appeal.

 

 

 

    Several hours later, dinner was in the oven cooking and I was waiting for my husband to return home from the studio.  “Come on Sarah we’ll take a little walk before dinner”.  Feeling the need to get outside and breathe in the fresh air I took her little hand and we walked together down to the end of the road.  It was a rather lonely time in my life.  We lived in a great neighborhood yet we didn’t fit in.   John was a fine artist, and sculptor but we struggled to pay for the simple basics of life.  There were no vacations, no dinners out, and more importantly in middle class suburbia, no money for home improvement!  Only the oldest of old cars graced the Winant dirt driveway.   We lived gratis, in an old family house that was in great need of updating and repair and I am quite sure, that it was considered the neighborhood eyesore. Property values were on the rise after all!!!

     

     It was a dead ended cul-de-sac, a perfect neighborhood for young children but although there were some younger families, for the most part, it was the older generation that befriended us.  They remembered Nanny and Bessie and Earl and Harold and for their sake the older folks were always kind to us. I also had the added grace of working for the town’s elderly drop in center and many of the old timers remembered and were friends with the Winants. The connections to the past and the town’s history helped me to feel a sense of belonging even though I had no close friends near my own age.

         That particular evening, I was just glad to have gotten out of the house and was feeling a simple joy in holding my daughters hand as we strolled.  We were headed back home, when a small red Renault rolled down the street in a seemingly deliberate crawl.  As the driver pulled up beside us she leaned her head out the window and questioned me, accompanied by a worrisome frown, slim smile and a heavy French accent.  “Did you see

My cat?”  She was a dark haired petite woman probably in her forties. “Did you lose your cat? What does it look like?” I asked  “Well”, she replied, “He is white with golden brown patches.  I cannot find Him.  I have been looking all over.”  As she continued her description I had a sudden visual memory of her cat!  She was describing what seemed to be the very cat that I had prayed for earlier that morning, the same cat that I had prayed for earlier in the day.  “ I did see your cat I exclaimed!   I prayed for your cat.” “ She responded,  “You saw my cat? You prayed for my cat? Where did you see my cat?”  To be quite honest up until that moment I had completely forgotten the incident and even forgotten my fervent prayer to the Almighty to bring someone my way that day to  “pour His life into”, as Father D had demanded I do.  You dear readers, no doubt, see the obvious alignment, yet at the time I still didn’t.  I thought hard, but simply could not exactly place where I had actually seen the cat.  I thought perhaps a mile or two down route 109. 

 

 

      My natural Inclination no matter what the problem appears to be is to ask God for help.  I can only chalk it up to the fact that I recognize what a weak and foolish creature I am and how much I need help most of the time and about most things.  So I immediately asked her if she prays.  She told me that she asks St. Anthony to find things for her. Quite an aside, I often ask his help these days and am amazed at his stirring ability to find my many and sundry lost items… As my Saintly Aunt Mary says to me, He is a wonderful man”.   I said to my little French friend,  “I liked to Pray to Jesus.” And she questioned, in all sincerity with her heavy French accent, “Do you think He is more powerful?”  “Oh yes,” I said He is God.”  Then I asked her if she would like me to pray with her for the return of her cat.   So there we were, she, still sitting in her little red Renault, me standing, holding her hand joining our intentions in request to the God above all, to please return her cat.   It wasn’t until later that day after dinner that I realized the prayer I had prayed because of Father DiLorenzo had been answered in a most delightful way.  What was even more striking was the fact that I had seen and prayed for her cat  even before I had made my own request to God.

 

 

A small addendum. About a month later I was attempting to expand our social acceptance in the cul-de-sac  suburban neighborhood and asked one of the younger families to stop in for coffee and dessert after dinner one night.   As we, sat and exchanged trivialities my neighbor suddenly broke the continuity of the conversation with a question,    “Louise do you remember praying with a woman that her cat would return”?  Well she works with me at the hospital and she just wanted me to tell you that it did.”

 

 

Small animal stories to be continued . . . .