morning

One of the nice things about unemployment is that I get to spend more time at home. The parish by my house, which I did not choose to be my home parish, has morning mass on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So today I bicycled to mass. I couldn't find the padlock with which to lock up my bike, and didn't know where the keys were to the padlocks that I could borrow from some of the stuff we have padlocked. But desiring to not miss mass, I took the bike anyways, risking it being stolen while I'm inside. I placed it out of sight in the little grotto they had and hurried on inside. I failed to notice if there was a statue of Mary there (I would think there was). I asked God and Mary to watch over my bike and resolved not to worry about it so that I can "be at" mass. Sure enough, my bike was still there after mass.

Wednesday, I will apologize to Mary if I find that indeed her statue is there. In imitation of one of the Saints, I try to say hello to Mary ("Hail, Mary!") whenever I come across her statue.

I've concluded that it's not that I turn to God only as a last resort, but rather, I turn to God only after I've tried to do what is my responsibility to do. In this case, it is my responsibility to secure my bike, but having been unable to do that in my frenzy this morning, I then turn to God to fill in where I can't.