Yesterday our parish office was closed to give our staff a long weekend with the Thanksgiving Holiday.  I had no special plans when I stopped in the office for a little while to check my email.  I had been thinking about going to the hospital to make some routine visits.  I had reason to believe that we had at least one parishioner there.  But given the office was closed I was leaning against going, instead finding some rest time.

Just as I was about to leave the office, my phone rang.  It was a parishioner asking me to visit their mother who was in the hospital and not doing well.  I said I would there in half an hour (I had to walk back to my house to get my car and change my clothes or it would have been faster).

So I saw the woman I was called for.  While there I visited three other parishioners and a couple of others listed as Catholic but no parish, including one woman who had come in during the night who I anointed.

There was no great profound visit.  But I saw more people during this trip to the hospital than any other time since I came to Ithaca.  The phone call for the one lady was perhaps God’s way of getting me to the hospital to see just not that one lady but several.

God gets us where we need to be.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff