A copy of the newspaper clipping above was in my wallet when I met a guy that helped me get a job when I was chronically unemployed. Notice the number 1 in the yellow dot, lower right.

I repaired my old Missal this weekend. Not to be irreverent or blasphemous but I had a feeling similar to the one that St.Francis had when God asked him to repair his church.

Francis got busy quickly and applied brick and mortar to an old chapel that was abandoned in a remote field. When Francis checked in for his “paycheck” God famously admonished him for working without understanding the assignment.

The repair of my 1960 New Marian Missal gave me a happy feeling, mostly because it had fallen into tatters. I repaired the covers hinges with a cleverly glued cloth and painted the traces of lost lining with a magic marker.

Just now, as I was taking a photo for this post, the center pages fell out in my fingers. The scotch tape from a previous repair failed as I was pressing the pages to get a better look at the bell that I drew in when I was 12 years old, reminding me to ring the bell at the Offertory.

I quickly ran a line of glue and inserted the clump back in.