Sunday, July 28, 2013: Luke 11:1-13

I was walking home when Vicki ran up to me. Vicki and I had become acquainted over the last few months because I regularly walked past her hangout in Old Louisville. The intersection was anchored by a Chinese restaurant, a liquor store, a pharmacy and a bus stop and flanked by low-income housing developments. I lived near the downtown church where I served as priest. As one of the few middle-class people who walked through the area, I was often asked for money or bus tickets.

Vicki asked me for money too. A tiny woman with close-cropped hair and huge brown eyes, she radiated intensity. I didn’t respond directly to her request but gestured toward the Chinese restaurant: “I haven’t had lunch yet. Would you like to join me?” Vicki explained that she wasn’t welcome inside the restaurant, so we sat outside on a retaining wall and ate from take-out containers. When Vicki discovered that I was a priest, she exclaimed, “For real?” and grabbed my hands and asked me to pray with her. She closed her eyes as I blessed her with the sign of the cross on her forehead, then she dashed across the street.

Once a week or so Vicki and I ate lunch together, had coffee or just talked. I might give her a bus ticket or a little cash. I never learned where she lived, and she didn’t ask where I lived. The one constant in our relationship was prayer. Each time we met, we held hands, bowed our heads and shared our needs and our thanks with God.