By
Michael Casey
Today in Rome John Henry Newman is Canonised, he is actually a neighbour as The Oratory is just up the road, about a 25 minute walk. My sister has actually seen 2 Saints. Mother Theresa visited her school, and JPII did a papal Mass and my sister was in the crowd. I of course am amongst the sinners, so I never meet or see anybody “holy”. I do of course know about praying for a miracle, you can find and read Padre Pio and Me which is on the Internet.
Now I’m not going to stick with the holy stuff, as most of you would be bored. I’m sure those of you camping in a field in Ukraine won’t be too interested in the holy stuff. Meanwhile in Indonesia this morning somebody is reading a Polish Translation of Quick Stories, so hello to them and to my Korean readers too. So to the point, well almost, when do I ever go in a straight line, only bullets do that, so duck if you are in a conflict zone. No, I’m doing to try and get you thinking, and maybe smirking like a Government Minister.
When was the last time you prayed for a miracle? When your girlfriend said she thought she was pregnant and her dad still thinks she is a pure as the Virgin Mary herself. So you prayed that she was virgo intacta, ever though you were both like rabbits for 18 months. Please God, let her not be pregnant, I cannot afford to have a family, please God let her not be pregnant. I promise I’ll be the best dad ever, but not yet, but not yet. So God smiles, and he has a very long memory. So 5 years later you marry, as you are now successful, and God sends you 5 daughters. For years you got the knickers off your sweetheart. Now you will spend the rest of your life making sure that such a thing does not happen to your pure innocent daughters. All 5 of them. But you are in luck as they all become lesbians, ok I’m joking now, but you get the picture. You pray for one thing and you get the other.
Please God, let me get that job, I really need this job, only you get sacked and spend 6 months on the dole, they sack you on your dad’s Birthday, and you so much wanted to make your dad proud of you. But after 6 months you get a dream job and stay there 20 years making lots of money. So did God ignore your prayers and then by Luck you got something far far better? Either way its was an ill wind that blew no good, or was that the Holy Spirit, or the bottle of vodka Lech Boris and Gregorgi gave you to cheer you up. Instead it blew your head off, it was the 2017 Warley Woods best vintage vodka. So you swore you’d never touch any alcohol again, which helped save you a lot of money, but also Kim never ever touched alcohol, so you won her heart by being an alcohol free man. You did get something far far better in return, her.
Then you pray for a child, as annoying and as snot smearing and noisy as kids are your life with Kim would not be complete without a child. So you pray for a child, but nothing comes, you are a childless couple. Then her brother and his wife tragically die leaving 3 young kids behind, the orphanage beckons. But you and Kim scream, NO, so suddenly you have 3 kids, and you are a family of 5. So was that God doing simple quadratic equations, move this, delete that, balance this and you get that. Either way you have 3 kids getting parents, who will love them to death, due to the death of their real parents. Later you discover the dead real parents were couriers for drugs dealers, hiding stuff under babies nappies and so forth. So was God balancing the scales, the scales of justice? And the 3 innocent toddlers got real loving parents, and not drug dealing parents. You never know.
What about me, this 40 something boy who ended up with 2 beauties as daughters? God’s sense of humour, ugly dad’s get beautiful children. I really did stand by the fridge and looking at my dead mother’s photo say “I give up, all I want is a wife and perhaps a family, and to do something useful with my life” And the rest is History, or so they say.
But miracles don’t last forever you have to work at them.
So be careful what you pray for, life is strange and so much more, a “miracle” can be a bus arriving so you get to the interview on time. Or you get soaking wet and stand there dripping for your interview, you are so pissed off that you strip off, you just don’t care. So you stand there naked and dripping. I want to be judged on by my abilities. The interview panel is three Swedish blondes, who smile and laugh, then strip off besides you. A photographer appears. You have just made the cover of Nudist Magazine 2019. In your soggy state you have gone into the wrong room.
But it’s an ill wind that blows no good, Olga, Helga and Swelga are sisters and they share everything. As for the Natural History job, the interviewer’s car broke down in all the rain, so you get an email apology. So you come back the next week and get that job, based on your ability, no stripping required. Though the sisters become friends and you go camping with them every weekend. And if that isn’t a miracle then nothing is.
Just in case God is reading this, He knows my soul, and he knows what I really need, and maybe just maybe John Henry Newman as you are a freshly minted Saint, how about helping your neighbour from down the road? Or maybe I’m too big a challenge, or just bad salt that should be thrown out? Though God does take rubbish and turns it into something useful. So is that me?
John Henry Newman, my neighbour from just up the road
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