This morning after Holy Mass, our Reading Club met in its regular place beneath the big apple tree behind St. Mary’s Church. The morning air was fresh, and the leaves made little moving shadows on the grass. Mini settled beside me as if she had been appointed official club watchdog.
Father LeRoy smiled and said, “Kathy, would you read your chapter summary for us?”
So I stood with my notes and read.
This chapter was about how some of the unbelievers at Lourdes did not want to face the real miracles. The cures were being talked about everywhere, and people kept coming to the Grotto. But instead of honestly looking into what had happened, certain newspaper writers began making up strange stories that nobody at Lourdes had ever claimed.
They ignored the real cures and the real people who had been healed. Instead, they printed silly and frightening tales so they could laugh at them later and pretend they had disproved everything.
When I finished, Robert shook his head. “If the facts were on their side,” he said, “they would not have needed to invent anything.”
Sister Mary Claire said softly, “Truth does not need tricks. But pride often does.”
Father LeRoy nodded. “And the Church is careful with miracles,” he told us. “God performs them. The Church does not make them true. She only investigates and judges carefully.”
That made the chapter easier for me to understand.
After our discussion, Father LeRoy went into the parish hall and came back rolling out his old White Mountain ice cream maker. Everyone smiled because we knew something good was coming.
Then Father brought out several boxes of doughnuts and told us what had happened.
“I stopped by the bakery last night just before closing,” he said. “The doughnuts were marked half price, so I thought I would buy some for the Reading Club.”
Then he grinned.
“But when Sasha heard they were for our Reading Club, he would not let me pay. He said they were on the house.”
Everyone thought that was so kind of him.
The doughnuts had been made the old-fashioned way with beef tallow, and they were wonderful. The outside was lightly crisp and golden, while the inside stayed soft and fluffy. They tasted rich and warm in the way old-fashioned food always seems to taste better.
Soon we were eating Sasha’s doughnuts with homemade vanilla ice cream under the apple tree. Mini sat very still beside me, watching every bite and hoping someone might drop a crumb from breakfast.
Before we left, Father LeRoy handed me a prayer that he wrote and asked me to read it.
Then we gathered our books, said goodbye until tomorrow, and headed home.
It was a lovely morning.
Love,
Kathy
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