Photography: Mark H. Paalman/CC BY-SA
With considerable gentleness you close the Adoration Chapel door, slowly, so that the latch barely whispers.
Those in the dimly lit room do not turn around. Good. A precise dab of your finger into the Holy Water, a reverent sign of the Cross, and then you find a pew to your liking (far as able from the others), genuflect, sit, prepare your Holy Rosary. Then you kneel—slowly—settle, and encounter, with reflection and contrition, Jesus, present in the Most Holy Eucharist.
A half-scale crucifix on the front wall reminds you of your longing: to be with Him. Directly beneath rests a metal monstrance on an altar, oval in shape. It beckons, almost hypnotically, with alternating bands of silver and gold that radiate: flashing rays from its center, tenderly framing the Blessed Sacrament.
Head bowed in prayer, you begin the First Sorrowful Mystery – it’s Friday – but your are startled by a deep sigh, from behind you to the right. Then another: from the same person, of an elderly inclination. The sound drips with pathos.
Then, the clatter of moist lips smacking together.
Was that a crunch, as if a cough drop had just been too-eagerly consumed?
You lose track. You pause. Intermittent sighing and smacking intrude again. Frustrate.
Dear God, you begin.
And then you realize you have a distinct purpose, right here, today.
So you re-jigger your Holy Rosary prayer dedications.
Dear Lord, thank you for making me a quiet person, not like that sighing smacking crunching heathen.
What a captivating story. I wish it would continue
Thank you, this made me laugh.