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My sister Charity has a friend who told her this story about a strange experience he had. He's a nice Italian boy who tries to get to mass every Sunday and when for some reason he can't, he tries to make a visit to church. So this story takes place on such a Sunday- he had missed mass due to having to work, but he stopped into a church to say hello. When he went into the church, it was empty except for one little old lady sitting in one of the front most pews. He spent some time in silence at the altar rail, and then as he turned to leave his attention was again focused on this little old lady. He thought he would say hello as he walked out. She was wearing what appeared to be a veil over her head, so he assumed she was a nun who worked at the parish.

"Hello, do you work here?"
"Oh, no; I work for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I just do whatever she asks me to do. Sometimes she just asks me to pray on my knees for hours at a time and I tell her how much it hurts and how badly I want to stop, but she just asks me to keep praying, so I do it."

At this point our friend noticed that the veil was not actually a veil but a piece of kleenex opened up and placed strategically on top of her head, and that the pew around her was strewn with all sorts of papers and notebooks. He smiled inwardly, realizing now that he was dealing with someone who was "a couple beads shy of a decade", if you catch my meaning. He smiled at her and said his goodbyes, and her last words were "may the Immaculate Heart of Mary protect you on your travels". He walked down the aisle a bit, and thinking to himself "that was weird" turned to see her one last time. But, of course, the woman was gone. And when he scrambled back to check her pew, all the papers were gone as well. He spent the next half hour scouring the church for her, looking under pews and behind furniture, even checking the confessionals. And then he finally said to himself "well, I believe in God... why is is so difficult to think that something unexplainable happened to me today?"

I think of this because a little old lady came up to me in church this morning when I was particularly anxious. Her lipstick was not quite in line with her lips, and she handed me a holy card that she had clearly made herself. The ink was smudged and the edges were not cut in line with the picture. But she asked me if she could pray for me and of course I said yes. So she put her hands on my shoulders and prayed silently for a few minutes, then walked away. That's all. Nothing miraculous. No disappearing, no cryptic words. I don't think she was an angel in the typical sense, but it was comforting to have this stranger offer to pray for me at a time when I was feeling more than a little fearful. So I think she was working for the Immaculate Heart of Mary too. There's lots of em out there.