The Blind Man & the Child

By Ann Tran as told to Jean Seah.

Some years ago in Adelaide, I was struggling with my faith and with attending Mass.

One day in the Cathedral of St. Francis Xavier, I was kneeling in prayer when I felt a tap on my leg, a sign that someone had entered the pew. I moved over, but felt another tap, so I moved again. Finally after moving all the way to the end of the pew, I looked up and realized that there was a blind gentleman tapping me with his cane. He hadn’t figured out that he was tapping a person, not part of the pew.

He was a very handsome and tall man with the most beatific smile. At the Sign of Peace, he nodded at everyone around him, and you wouldn’t have known that he was blind except for his walking stick.

I thought to myself, “If this blind man can travel all the way through the city to come to Mass, so can I.”

At the next Mass I attended, a little child, perhaps 11 years old, sat near me by herself. She looked as if she had come after school. She sang each hymn with a reverent joy that pierced my soul.

“Ok, God, I get the message,” I said interiorly to Him. “If this child can come to Mass by herself, so can I!”

Although I was a regular parishioner at the cathedral, I never saw either of them again.

The encounter with the blind man got me thinking, and the encounter with the girl was affirmation.

God speaks to us in mysterious and subtle ways — it may be in the tapping of a blind man and the singing of a child.

___

Also see: “Crawling to Mass“.

Guest Writer

Guest Writer

Leave a Replay

1 thought on “The Blind Man & the Child”

  1. Pingback: FRIDAY CATHOLICA EXTRA – Big Pulpit

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sign up for our Newsletter

Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit