Saints and Angels Among Us

The past couple of weeks have been extremely challenging with our 8 year old son. Due to my disability I am unable to physically exert any control over him.  He of course knows this and uses time in public to be disobedient and embarass me.  Today at daily Mass was no exception.  However, I decided to take a different approach then in the past.  Instead of leaning over and trying to gain control with my words I just let the situation be and tried to focus on the Mass.  Kostin was sitting next to me and then I had a seat left open between Kostin and his 12 year old sister. I was hoping to try and decrease the temptation for fooling around.  Despite the space between the two kids I could hear Alina saying stop, as Kostin was hitting her arm, she kept saying stop you will get us in trouble. At one point in the Mass I asked Our Blessed Mother and Our Lord for help.  Moments later a women came forward in the middle of Mass.  She quietly and without a word walked between my children and sat down.  I looked at her sheepishly and smiled she in turned looked at me and gave a small smile and then began to pray reverently.  Throughout the remainder of the Mass she never looked at the children.  She was quiet and deep in prayer.  After Mass there were many people leaving their seats.  When I noticed her again she had moved to a seat right under our Crucifix.  She remained kneeling for our entire rosary, prayers and Divine Mercy Chaplet.  She never turned around or moved from her kneeling position.

After Mass one of my friends sitting near me asked if I knew her.  I responded that I did not.  Our daily Mass usually consists of the same group of people with little variation.  No one knew who this women was or when she entered as she took a seat in between the children in the middle of Mass.  Alina my 12 year old was shaken by the arrival of this women who took her seat between her and her brother.  She imediately said she thought it was Jesus.  My first thought when I saw the women's face was that she looked like St. Rose of Lima.  She was a women of around 30 of Spanish/South American heritage. She had dark hair and looked very much like the picture I have included below of St. Rose.  As yesterday was the Feast of St. Rose of Lima she was top of mind.  I also wondered if this women was an angel sent by God to help.

St. Rose of Lima

On my walk home the children and I were finishing our prayers of the rosary when I came upon a women I recognized from Church.  I had not seen her for a while and also remembered seeing her at the grocery store years earlier.  She was just getting into a car.  However by the time I approached the car she was already in and the doors were closed.  I leaned over and waved and she waved back through the window.  I remembered the flyer in our bag for the Little Audrey Santo Event on October 7th.  I took the flyer over to her car and stood by the window of the car.  She rolled down the window. I mentioned the exciting prayer event planned on the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.  She took the flyer and shared that she is in a very bad way. She asked that we pray for her as she has no placed to live.  She wondered if we could pray to St. Joseph.  The children and I said yes and also offered to pray to Our Lady in our rosary.  As we parted I wondered if this chance meeting at a moment of crisis had felt like an angel to her(even though I know that my children and I are anything but angels).  I thought of the women at Mass and wondered, maybe this was a person like you or I who the Lord recruited for a moment to be an angel for someone in need.  The act that this women did was small, she sat between two of my children.  However, it touched me deeply because it happened right when I was at my wits end.

I wondered if the Lord had been able to put the idea to stop just for that second and wait by Barbara's closed window when normally I would have walked right by.  Had I been more sensitive to the idea because the children and I had just come from Mass and were praying the rosary.

Maybe those moments when we think we have just met an angel are moments when the Lord is using the hands of his servants here on earth for a moment.  Maybe, we could be His Hands one day for someone else.

The Lord is always teaching as a loving parent would.  He showed me a sign today and then showed me that we can all be living signs.  We only have to pray that He use us as His hands.  The childen's rosary has said individual novenas to over 400 Saints asking that the members of the children's rosary be the extended hands of Mary and Jesus.  To be a member of the children's rosary one only has to tell our Lord in their heart that they want to be a member and then all the novenas and rosaries said daily will inlcude you.  If we all give our Lord permission to use us as His hands how beautiful and peaceful would our world be.  Add you hands to our web that extends across the globe.  Let Our Lady and Jesus fulfull their plans through us.  They certainly have plans and I for one would love to see Their plans come to fruition!!!  Amen