This last Saturday night I was up very late, til about 1:30 am. Ordinarily, that might not be that big of a deal, but I go to St. Clement’s Shrine for an hour of Eucharistic Adoration at 3am every Saturday night. Then, after the hour of adoring the Lord, I drive across Boston to my father’s house and sleep until about 8 am to get up to teach religious education at the local parish church. That means that I only got a few hours of sleep, so, after everything was wrapped up at about noontime, I decided I would take a little catnap before heading out to meet some friends.
I got up around 1 and headed out to the car, got into the car, started it up, and proceeded to back out into the street, and – bam – backed right into the car that was parked across the street.
“Oh, no,” I’m thinking, “not good. Not good.” I’m thinking, time, paperwork, money… Not good.
The car I hit belonged to a laborer who was working on the neighbor’s house. Usually there is no car there, and I was still so groggy from the nap that I didn’t even notice.
I went to the neighbor’s – “I backed into the car here on the street.” So the man comes out in a good mood, and asks me where I hit it. “I backed into the bumper here.” He looked at it. “There?” Yup. He smiled and said, “I don’t see anything.”
As he walked back into the house, I thanked him a few times.
No accident report, no insurance issues, no cost. What a break, what a relief.
When we make mistakes in life, it can seem like we ‘re going to have to pay a lot for them. But when we’re ready to take responsibility for them, when we confess them to the Lord, He smiles at us. He looks at the damage and says the words that take a big weight off of our mind and heart:
“I don’t see anything.”
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34)
