Manyu was not out of town for more than a day when I tried to pick up a young woman outside the supermarket. She was standing alongside a grocery cart full of food when I went into the store, and she was still standing there when I came out. After I loaded my own groceries into my car, I drove up alongside her and asked if she needed a ride.
Maybe I should mention that the woman was a nun, although she was not dressed like any nun I’d ever seen before. Her long tunic was white, her hooded robe bright red. Her demeanor exuded a peacefulness so complete that I sensed she would have stood in front of the store all day if her ride didn’t show up. It was her total calm that made me want to help.
The woman declined my offer of a ride by saying, “No, thank you. I just called, and they are coming to get me.” In the way that she said it, I wasn’t sure whether “they” meant other nuns or a band of angels. It might have been either.
At that point I blurted out, “Who are you?”
The smile already on her face grew even bigger, and she said, “Our name is too long for you to remember, but here’s a brochure about us.” She handed me a photocopied trifold with the title Franciscan Congregation of Divine Mercy. “We just bought a farm near Genoa. I am very excited. We live simply, and we invite children to visit us to experience rural life.”
I thanked her for the brochure, and three things came to mind as I drove away. One, this young nun was doing work not unlike what I did with school groups in the California redwoods forty-five years ago. Two, I doubted that she wore her spotless red and white habit when she tended to the chickens. Three, I was glad that she hadn’t accepted my offer of a ride. When I made the offer, I’d assumed that she lived in the Franciscan convent on the Viterbo University campus. A trip to Viterbo would have added no more than five minutes to my drive home. The town of Genoa, on the other hand, is twenty miles away. A roundtrip there would have taken me an hour, but it would have been interesting to see the farm.
Recent Comments