The Reader
Hello strangers, I'm Mary Evangeline. (:
Just call me Mary for short
Studied in Holy Innocents' Primary School
Primary 1-4F, 5D and 6H
And Holy Innocents' High School
Secondary 1-2 Charity and 3-4 Integrity
Currently studying in Nanyang Poly
In the process of becoming a nurse!
CCA were brownies, choir and voice ensemble
I play the piano
Oh, And proud to be a Roman Catholic
Bible verse
For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Jim Castle was tired when he boarded his plane in Cincinnati, Ohio,
that
night in 1981. The 45-year-old management consultant had put on a
week-long series of business meetings and seminars, and now he sank
gratefully into his seat ready for the flight home to Kansas City,
Kansas .
As more passengers entered, the place hummed with conversation,
mixed with
the sound of bags being stowed. Then, suddenly, people fell silent.
The quiet
moved slowly up the aisle like an invisible wake behind a boat. Jim
craned
his head to see what was happening, and his mouth dropped open.
Walking up the aisle were two nuns clad in simple white habits
bordered
in blue. He recognized the familiar face of one at once, the
wrinkled
skin, the eyes warmly intent. This was a face he'd seen in newscasts
and on
the cover of TIME. The two nuns halted, and Jim realized that his
seat
companion was going to be Mother Teresa! As the last few passengers
settled in, Mother Teresa and her companion pulled out rosaries.
Each
decade of the beads was a different color, Jim noticed. The decades
represented various areas of the world, Mother Teresa told him
later, and
added,"I prayfor the poor and dying on each continent." The airplane
taxied to the
runway and the two women began to pray, their voices a low murmur.
Though Jim considered himself not a very religious Catholic who went
to
church mostly out of habit, inexplicably he found himself joining
in.
By the time they murmured the final prayer, the plane had reached
cruising
altitude. Mother Teresa turned toward him. For the first time in his
life, Jim understood what people meant when they spoke of a person
possessing an "aura". As she gazed at him, a sense of peace filled
him; he
could no more see it than he could see the wind, but he felt it,
just as
surely as he felt a warm summer breeze. "Young man," she inquired,
"do you say the rosary often?" No, not really," he admitted. She
took his hand,
while her eyes probed his. Then she smiled. "Well, you will now."
And she
droppedher rosary into his palm .An hour later Jim entered the
Kansas City
airport, where he was met by his wife, Ruth. "What in the world?"
Ruth asked when she noticed the rosary in his hand.
They kissed and Jim described his encounter. Driving home, he said.
"I
feel as if I met a true sister of God." Nine months later Jim and
Ruth
visited Connie, a friend of theirs for several years. Connie
confessed that
she'd been told she had ovariancancer."The doctor says it's a tough
case,"
said Connie, "but I'm going to fight it. I won't give up." Jim
clasped her
hand. Then, after reaching into his pocket, he gently twined
MotherTeresa's
rosary around her fingers. He told her the story and said, "Keep it
with
you Connie. It may help."Although Connie wasn't Catholic, her hand
closed
willingly around the small plastic beads. "Thank you," she
whispered. "I
hope I can return it. "More than a year passed before Jim saw Connie
again.
This time, faceglowing, she hurried toward him and handed him the
rosary "I
carried it with me all year," she said.
"I've had surgery and have been on chemotherapy, too. Last month,
the
doctors did second-look surgery, and the tumor's gone. Completely!"
Her
eyes met Jim's. "I knew it was time to give the rosary back." In the
fall
of 1987, Ruth's sister, Liz, fell into a deep depression after her
divorce.
She asked Jim if she could borrow the rosary, and when he sent it,
she hung
it over her bedpost in a small velvet bag. "At night I held on to
it, just
physically held on. I was so lonely and afraid," she says, "yet when
I
gripped that rosary, I felt as if I held a loving hand."Gradually,
Liz
pulled her life together, and she mailed the rosary back."Someone
else may
need it," she said.
Then one night in 1988, a stranger telephoned Ruth. She'd heard
about
the rosary from a neighbor and asked if she could borrow it to take
to the
hospital where her mother lay in a coma. The family hoped the rosary
might help their mother die peacefully. A few days later, the woman
returned
the beads. "The nurses told me a coma patient can still hear," she
said,
"so I explained to my mother that I had Mother Teresa's rosary and
that
when I gave it to her she could let go; it would be all rosary in
her hand.
Right away, we saw her face relax. The lines smoothed out until she
looked
so peaceful, so young." The woman's voice caught. "A few minutes
later
she was gone." Fervently, she gripped Ruth's hands. "Thank you." Is
there
special power in those humble beads? Or is the power of the human
spirit
simply renewed in each person who borrows the rosary?
Jim only knows that requests continue to come often unexpectedly. He
always responds though whenever he lends the rosary. He says, "When
you're through needing it, send it back. Someone else may need it."
Jim's
own life has changed, too, since his unexpected meeting on the
airplane.
When he realized Mother Teresa carries everything she owns in a
small bag,
he made an effort to simplify his own life. "I try to remember what
really
counts -not money or titles or possessions, but the way we love
others," he
says.
7:28 PM