Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati - Believing the Lord will provide

As a small child my parents taught me many things - just like parents the world over: the ABCs, my numbers, respect for family and others. They introduced me to church, led me up to the crib at Christmas to sing "Happy Birthday," brought me to block Rosary every week somewhere in the neighborhood, helped me light candles at church to pray for others and at home when storms were threatening, and in all things they shared by word and example their deep faith in the "lilies of the field" story - the Lord provides, so why worry?

I can still hear my parents saying, "The Lord provides in mysterious ways." At home, in the neighborhood, in their business, in listening to the evening news and reading the newspaper, one thing was clear to me from early on: There is no place where the Lord has not preceded us and will not provide for us.

As the days and years have gone by, I have relied on that early lesson and have learned that when I forget it, I fail to see the blessings of the Lord that surround me. When family illnesses arose, we went to block Rosary with our needs and were helped by the prayers and presence of our neighbors and friends - and of course, the Lord working through them.

Even when prayers were answered differently than our requests, someone - sometime later - would tell the story, and I could see the presence of the Lord in the midst of the seeming chaos.

My grandmother was a wonderful woman who could stretch her hands from my shoulder to my knee, board the bus to town, come home with material and make me a dress without a pattern. She could bake and cook the best of meals, and Grandma and Grandpa's house had little grass in the yard from all the gatherings that happened in their yard. It was a warm and wonderful place. I remember being gathered on her lap and rocked to sleep.

And I remember when she began to disappear behind the curtain of mental illness. I wanted her back; she tried, but the illness was stronger. She continued to pray her Rosary, often praying out loud in thanksgiving that it was she and not her children who was sick.

She and Grandpa were ill with different illnesses and spent their last days apart from each other. Eventually, Grandma went to a nursing home. It was a long illness, and I was more than 20 the day I found her dead in her bed at the nursing home. She was reaching toward the window, her body itself was at rest and no longer held stiff with distress, and her body was turned to the light coming through the window, her face filled with joy and peace.

The nurse told me that all day Grandma had been muttering something about John (perhaps something about her brother, I thought) and then some numbers - they sounded like three and 16 - but she wasn't really sure.

Later that week, my uncle came in from California to celebrate the Mass of Resurrection for Grandma. When I picked him up at the airport, he told me that on the plane ride he kept thinking that the Gospel reading for the Mass should be John 3:16. When we got to church, the organist asked if it was okay to use John 3:16 as the Gospel acclamation, even before he knew which Gospel my uncle had been "given." My grandmother was a woman who rarely read the headlines in the newspaper, much less the Bible - what a great consolation this was in the midst of great sorrow!

The Lord has continued to provide in mysterious ways throughout my life, moments that begged me to be still and know that the Lord is God, full of kindness and compassion, always providing every grace and blessing.

Just recently, an older man showed me a picture he was giving a sick friend. It is a picture of Jesus laughing. He said he never wanted his friend to forget: The Lord always provides.

(Schneller is DRE at St. Peter Parish in New Richmond and owner of Innervisions Catholic bookstore.)