Magic Beads

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a mass to celebrate the start of a new order of priests. A good friend of mine, his blog is listed on my list of other blogs as Homelessness in America, is starting his own order of priests. It's pretty ambitious, more ambitious than anything I've ever done. But he seems to be guided by God since almost everything just seems to be happening one step after the other as if it's meant to be. I wish I would see those kinds of steps in front of me. Maybe I'm not being ambitious enough.

This service the other day was in a beautiful little church in downtown Los Angeles with the coolest altar. It was in the shape of a boat. Made of marble. Really neat. We celebrated mass and towards the end, there was a blessing of rosaries. The rosaries were handmade by a wonderful woman who often makes them for groups to hand out to the homeless. The strange thing is, they just showed up in the PO Box for the new order a few days after the PO Box was opened. It's a brand new order that really very few people know about. The PO Box had only been opened a few days and wasn't advertised anywhere yet; not on any of the websites. How did this woman know to send these rosaries to this address?

My friend contacted the woman to thank her for the rosaries and also to find out how she heard about him. She wasn't sure. She was very unclear on it. She said she thought she read it somewhere. She doesn't even own a computer so even if it had been on his website, she wouldn't have seen it. She just said she thought she read the address somewhere.

Is it a miracle? Is it an example of God just making things happen that need to happen. Could be. Even if it was published in a random newspaper in another city about this new community starting, which is pretty unlikely given that it's still just getting started, that in itself could be a miracle I suppose. Is a miracle only someone coming back from the dead or is it just recognizing God's hand in any single event, regardless of it's magnitude?

All I know is that after the rosaries were blessed, we were allowed to come up and take one if we wanted. There was a bit of a rush as we all got up to get one. And I heard it run through my head, "I want some magic beads." Magic beads? Are they magic? Is it blasphemy just to say the words? I felt silly for a minute. Silly for believing in magic. Silly for believing in miracles. But gosh darn it I got my beads.