An Easy Way to Become a Saint - August 25

Continued from yesterday...

Chapter 6. After His Ascension

Jesus on our Altars

...In London, two girlfriends, one a Catholic and the other a Protestant, went shopping. Passing a church, the Catholic said goodbye to her friend, as she wished to assist at Benediction.

The Protestant, however, entered the church to wait. She remained standing, looking about. It was the first time she had been in a Catholic church.

When, however, the Priest placed the Monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar, she instinctively fell on her knees and folded her hands on her breast, gazing at the Sacred Host.

On leaving the church, to the surprise of her friend, she asked to be introduced to the priest. She wished to become a Catholic, though never before had she thought of it.
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A Protestant young man fell in love with a Catholic girl, but after some time, as he refused to become a Catholic, she declared that she could not marry him, though she loved and respected him very much. She begged him to consider the affair ended and asked him not to write to her again.

Broken-hearted, the young man took his annual holiday and went off to a country village to try to forget his grief.

The hotel in which he stayed was near the Catholic Church, and he could see from his room the Tabernacle lamp. The lamp became a fascination for him; sitting at his table, his eyes invariably turned toward it. It became an obsession.

He asked the servant who had charge of his room what that red lamp meant. Smiling, she answered, "It is the red lamp that burns before the Blessed Sacrament."

The obsession continued, and finally he resolved to enter the Church and see it for himself.

On entering the Church, great was his surprise to come face to face with the girl whom he had so wished to marry.

"What has brought you here?" he exclaimed. "I came," she answered, "to nurse my aunt, who is ill." "And what," she asked in turn, "brought you into this Catholic church, you who refused to think of becoming a Catholic?" He told her simply that the red lamp, which he could see from his room in the hotel, fascinated him and he had to come to see it.

"Then continue." she said, "Our Lord Himself is calling you." He did so and gradually his doubts and dislikes for the Church cleared away and he became a fervent Catholic and the happy husband of the girl he loved.....

[Continued tomorrow]
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From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949