It looked like it was going to be an easy day. In my schedule I had only the noon Mass and teaching the RCIA in the evening. It would have been a good day to traipse through the school thanking the students for their birthday wishes for me. But when I opened my e-mail one of my mountain parishioners had written, asking me to go see her 80 year old husband who was in a snow mobiling accident and broke his leg in two places. That was the same leg that had just gotten a new knee. Then before I got finished reading my e-mail a phone call came in from a really fine parishioner asking me to give the Last Rites to her brother-in-law who was near death. And, before Mass, I returned the phone call of a 95 year old parishioner who wanted me to be with him as he listened to the hospice nurse explain what hospice is, and what decisions he had to make about end of life issues. Each of these encounters was filled with grace, and along with Mass and the RCIA made for a splendid way to spend my 60th birthday.
