For two months I appeared for my wedding day ring.
I knew it was someplace in the dwelling. I just did not know in which.
I seemed. I seemed. I seemed. And I worried. And then I appeared some more.
I truly didn’t want to reduce that ring. Sure, there had been replacement selections. Mary proposed probably I could get a ring tattoo, therefore reducing the risk of getting rid of a different wedding day ring.
Not a terrible concept, except that I’m not a tattoo man.
I could go without having a ring. My commitment to Mary is good as gold. It does not require a circle on my finger to prove it.
Or, of program, I could purchase a further gold band. But it would not be the gold band I wore on July 8, 2002, as Mary and I stood in advance of the altar in the Lady’s Chapel of Our Woman of Perpetual Assist Cathedral and spoke our marriage ceremony vows, in the course of a common daily mass celebrated by my cousin Monsignor Michael Woster.
Ok, it wasn’t rather a standard each day mass. It was the mass regularly scheduled each individual working day at 5:30 p.m. But our marriage ceremony created that certain 5:30 mass a whole lot much more than typical.
And not just to Mary and me, or to our people.
“I was there that day,” condition Supreme Court docket Justice Janine Kern mentioned this previous July 8th, following Mary and I gained a blessing from Father Ed Witt on our 20th wedding ceremony anniversary subsequent noon mass at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church in North Immediate Town.
All those attending that mass at Isaac Jogues also took portion in the blessing, such as Justice Kern. She is a common noon-mass worshipper at Isaac Jogues. And she happened to be there on our 20th anniversary, just as she happened to be at the not-at-all-typical 5:30 mass at the cathedral 20 yrs before.
Aren’t these coincidences pleasant — presuming, of training course, that they are just coincidences.
We’ve had other men and women shock us over the several years by proclaiming “I was at your marriage ceremony,” when we did not know they were there and in some scenarios didn’t know them at all.
Of study course, there had been lots of there we did know and really like, which includes family members and buddies.
It was a distinctive working day, and I wore that gold band joyfully that working day and quite a lot every working day to appear for a lot more than 20 yrs, unless there was a quite good motive to get it off. You know, washing the dishes, cleansing a fish or pheasant, undertaking some home repair operate with applications that could be perilous with a ringed finger associated.
Wait around, scratch that very last just one. As you possibly know, I never do household repair service operate, with or without perhaps hazardous instruments. Mary often will take her marriage ring off when she does, having said that.
In any case, it is kind of humorous that I nervous so substantially about my ring getting shed. I’m not a jewellery dude, following all. I really do not have any chains or earrings or other finger rings or even a wristwatch. Just the one piece of jewellery — the just one that is so considerably much more than that.
And I dropped it. I dropped it. Which I’d in no way performed in advance of, in much more than 20 several years. Guaranteed, there were being misplacements, but they were often shorter phrase. I’d backtrack and determine out where I’d left the ring very rapidly. There were a 50 {05995459f63506108ab777298873a64e11d6b9d8e449f5580a59254103ec4a63} dozen dependable locations where it could be uncovered. And it constantly was.
This time was distinct. This time I backtracked and searched and apprehensive and puzzled, and did the very same factor day just after day, a minimal bit or a good deal each individual working day, for two weeks. I searched all the attainable destinations, and many that likely weren’t possible. Just in circumstance.
My upcoming action was St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of shed and stolen merchandise. As the Catholic tale goes, an individual stole a e-book of Psalms from Anthony, who was not a saint at the time, of program. When Anthony prayed for the return of the guide, it was returned.
I know persons who have had quite fantastic luck praying to St. Anthony. And who am I to argue with results? But when the concept intrigues me, I have not been much of a follower of that ritual in excess of the decades, when I’ve lost a little something.
Looking at the state of the world and the selection of desperate human needs, did I genuinely want to use my prayers for the return of a material product? Well, it’s possible, considering the fact that this was a really significant product product with value much over and above its substance worthy of.
So I thought about praying to St. Anthony, and forgot about it, and believed about it, and forgot. I was in a person of the forgetting phases when I was sitting on this chair in entrance of this keyboard and laptop monitor two days back, when I turned to look out the window of the den. As I turned, I seen a tiny glint from a thing peeking up from the edge of the cushion in our leather recliner.
I pushed my chair in excess of to the recliner and leaned ahead to peer down at what turned out to be a very small part of my marriage ceremony ring.
“My ring!” I cheered, digging it out from the recliner. “Hallelujah! The dropped is uncovered!”
I never know if I basically prayed to St. Anthony. And I never know if wondering about praying to St. Anthony is the same factor as praying to Saint Anthony. And I really don’t know if St. Anthony experienced something to do with it.
What I do know is that a number of times prior to Christmas, I received a reward with worth beyond estimation: the only piece of jewelry I have, or want.
Oh, Merry, Merry Christmas!
