The morning began with low grey rain clouds filling the sky. It began to sprinkle as I loaded my luggage into the car. By the end of breakfast and our drive into St. Louis and the Basilica, it was a proper rain, steady and gentle. It continued half the day, the first such rain in two months or more – and widespread, not just a localized shower.
You sent a gracious rain, O God, upon your inheritance; you refreshed the land when it was weary. (Psalm 68:9)For the first part of the Eucharist, the ATBs were shunted off into the same side chapel where I had prayed on Friday before the Tabernacle. We listened with delight as the trebles began the Mass:
Gloria in excelsis Deo.It was a moment of grace, almost unbearable. How could God be so good?
Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
Laudamus te.
Benedicimus te.
Adoramus te.
Glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.
After Evensong, I stood in the parking lot with the elderly bus driver. “Are they finished?” he asked. “Yes. The service is over. They are hugging on each other, saying good-by; they will be out here soon.”
“That rain was a gift from God,” he said. “It has already perked things up a little.”
As is my custom on the way home from the Course, I stopped at the roadside park north of Hannibal for a picnic supper in the early evening. There were puddles on the roadway at the turning into the little park. The birds and cicadas sang, bats darted through the sky above the ruined cornfield across the road, the moon sailed through the heavens.
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment