How great is our God!

This weekend didn't work out at all for me. It ended up much, much better! Isn't God wonderful?

I was going to go to Atlanta to see a high school group do Les Mis, and hopefully spend time with my cousins, and maybe even hang out with a friend that has a great personality and attractive (wink, wink, nod, nod). Anyway, work had other plans, that made me not be able to cut out early on Fri. So, I stayed in town. You know what that means... that's right, another downtown ritual and have I got a story for you!

This Sat. was overcast, okay it was down right cloudy and definitely going to rain sometime that day. But, that was a good thing as it made it a nice temperature to be outside. Well, at first we were 6 strong and actually, all of the first bunch were all Catholic. And we got a few thumbs up from passers. 2 of our group left only after a little while. Not too much later, we get a call (a little after 9) from some of our friends to see if we had been rained out since they are about 1/2 hour away and didn't know if they should come out. It hadn't rained all morning, and we told them we were out, so they said they would join us. Not too much later, it started sprinkling, and some Episcopalian friends showed up. One of the members wanted to call it quits when the rain came because she thought it was going to storm pretty soon. So, we armed ourselves with umbrellas and stayed. After awhile our Baptist friends from out of town, the ones that called, showed up with the kids. And the rain stopped. I joked with Mike that we didn't get any 1 finger salutes from passers until they showed up. And then some more Catholic friends came by.

So, we had our group of 13, which is pretty hardy. Just before 10:00 something absolutely amazing happened. An RV passes the street we are standing on with writing all over and it says PRO-LIFE WALK ACROSS AMERICA in bold letters! It goes around the corner and pulls into the parking lot on the corner. A couple of the ladies run down and then comeback saying that the new comers are coming up to join us (okay, thanks, but I already had that one figured). So, around the corner come 10 young adults with white shirts and PRO LIFE covering the front. Everyone else on that side of the sidewalk started talking to them, so I didn't rush over there. But, after awhile, I looked back and they were standing in a line holding books. Ah, I see, they had started praying the rosary! Excellent, just what I've been wanting. So, I make my way over there and then stand next to Major, who had joined them, and told him I was going to jump when the next set started (I had already silently prayed through the first 3 sets, so I figured it was alright if I missed the joyful since I wasn't there at the begining). Major said that he'd go stand at the other end then. So we go on to the luminous. During the song after it and before starting on sorrowful, God neglected to give us warning, but the sky just opened up and huge drops of water came flooding out. Major and I jumped for the umbrellas we had laid aside from the earlier rains and covered whoever we could. The walkers made it to an overhang at the building on the corner and we stood there talking for a while. I offered to run to a store and find ponchos for everyone, but they declined and 2 of the guys came back from the RV with small trash bags with holes in the top to cover at least the girls (well, their t-shirts were white). After ahile, the rain had washed out all of the rest of the locals, but after it let up, we headed back out to continue God's work. They lined back up, I joined them and we went through the other 2 sets of mysteries. It started raining again, and I noticed that one of the girls, Libby, didn't get a trash bag, but a fuzzy jacket. Bad idea. I popped open my umbrella and huddled with her. We finished up about 11:30, I walked over to the RV with them and asked some information including how to find out where they were going to be praying in ATL next weekend so I could let my friends out there know. They were all really nice and excellent people. I invited them over so they wouldn't have to cram back in their small space, but they said they were going to cleanup and head down to the Shrine (Mother Angelica's shrine) so they wouldn't have time, but they invited me to show up there and hang out with them and they eventually left.

To be continued...

Paix du Christ!