A boyhood friend of mine was a young priest/curate stationed in a blue-collar parish in a town near Marcus Hook, Pa. on the Delaware River. One afternoon his doorbell rang and when he answered he found a man who said "My wife's in the car and I would like to talk to a priest." Fr. Joe said "Invite your wife in and we can talk in private in my office." The man said "You don't understand, my wife's in the TRUNK of the car." Apparently he had been driving around aimlessly until he spotted the cross on the rectory and rang the bell. Fortunately, the old pastor was in the house who took over the scene and the newspapers next day quoted him and not my young priest friend. Fr. Joe had paid his dues in the confessional and had even done a stint as chaplain in the criminal ward of a local hospital, but nothing they taught him in the seminary prepared him for that day his doorbell rang. I again recalled Bogart's line from Casablanca - "Of all the gin mills in the world, she had to come into mine!"
tjs
(Excerpted from Eagle Blue Vol. 4 No. 3 April 20, 2007)
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