Sula, Parish Cat

Somewhat over two years ago, I related a story of how Sula, our parish cat at Old Mission, shown here in the Nativity scene this year, comes to confession. She also rarely misses a Mass,

Well, Sula has become somewhat famous these days. An article I wrote about her was published in the December 2015 Guideposts Magazine as "A Cat with a Mission." Guideposts synopsized the story on its website.

Then, this week, the Hollister Freelance (California paper) carried Sula's story in a touching piece, "Cat on a Mission."

Both articles had excellent pictures, including some that were not in the publications. If you find the Christmas picture endearing, check out these other two sites.

And, please, stand by. Sula is writing her own book, Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat's Story (MSI Press), due out in February (or maybe a tad later). The purpose is to raise money to retrofit her mission home against earthquakes.

So, here is the proverbial ending: "more later."

Have a relaxing weekend -- and find some time to be with Sula's Divine Inspirator, the good Lord (and St. Francis).

God's Second Christmas Gift to Me in 2013

I know that that 2013 is over, and we are now a few days into 2014. Epiphany, after all, marks the end of Christmas. However, Christmas this year is likely to stay with me for quite some time, yeah, maybe even forever. In addition to the Unsecret Santa gift that God gave to me this year, in a typically generous manner, He gave me a second Christmas gift--and he gave it to me at a special time--Christmas eve--and in a special place--our old mission church, which is my favorite church in all the world. Midnight Mass this year began at 10:30. (We cheat a little because there are lots of children and lots of elderly folks in this small comunity, so we end Midnight Mass at midnight, rather than beginning it at midnight, and we begin with a half hour of caroling, a tradition that seems to have fallen by the wayside.)
All of this is merely preliminary to share that while Christmas eve is always special in our community and church, Midnight Mass this Christmas eve was unexpectedly even more special. It was special because of the unexpected expected. Expected was a full house; we had it. Expected was a feeling of sharing Chistmas eve with centuries of parishioners gathered into our old mission on Christmas eve after Christmas eve; that sense was there, as always. Expected, too, was the presence and participation of Sula, our parish cat (a feral cat who adopted the church and whom the church adopted). Not unexpectedly, Sula, who never misses a Mass (clearly Catholic, as you can see here by her walking over to join the communion line), was sleeping in the creche while carols were sung. She woke up when the retinue of priest, deacon, and altar servers stopped at the creche at the beginning of Mass to lay baby Jesus in the manger. Knowing her place, she yielded to the Greater Authority, stepped out of the creche, followed the procession to the altar, and then promptly lay down in one of "her" places.

For a brief moment, I was sitting in an empty pew near the back of the church. It quickly filled from the right, though, and then the small space to the left was taken by a stranger, someone, I learned, who had recently moved to town. He noticed Sula and, in surprise, whispered to me that there was a cat at the altar. Yep, we are used to that. This is her church, and there is even a cat door that she uses, which is left over from the really old days when cats were needed to chase rats out of the church.Not to worry, I told him. She is Catholic and a member of our parish. She also sits in pews and expects parishioners to move over and give her space; they do.

After the opening prayers, we all sat down for the first reading. Sula stood up and walked in a straight line under the pews from front to back, appearing near my feet. I reached down and picked her up. She knows me, and after all, I am a cat lady; all cats know that. She did not want to sit beside me, however, as she sometimes does. Instead, she crawled over me and into the lap of the stranger beside me. He did not reject her but sat quietly while she slid her head under his arm and went to sleep, sprawled across his lap.

"I think this is a sign that God has forgiven me," he whispered to me, with emotion causing a catch in his voice. He went on to explain, "I was an abused child, and I used to torment cats. I know it is not a justification. It was just my way of dealing with things. I have been so repentant for so many years, and I give money to the SPCA to help them counteract people like I was. Still, I have never been able to forgive myself or feel that God has forgiven me for what I did to those cats."

He stopped for a minute, then whispered almost in wonderment, "I have never told anyone this before."

Why did he tell me? I will never know for sure, but I think it was God's second Christmas gift to me this year, letting me share in a moment of His grace. (He spoils me that way.)

As for the stranger, a great peace exuded from him--and from Sula. She slept on his lap all through Mass. He did not go up for Communion, not wanting to disturb her. The rest of us in the pew scrambled past him, but Sula did not move, just breathed slowly in the satisfaction that accompanies deep sleep. She was still sleeping on his lap when Mass ended and everyone scattered to their various homes. I said good-bye. My last image as I walked out of the church was the stranger, stilling sitting in the pew, alone, except for a little white angel on his lap.

Falling in Love with Some Special Churches

Since today is Sunday, and I have just had a round of visiting churches -- one for mass (St. Martin's in Garmisch, Germany) and Seekirchl in the Alps where I walked with Austrian friends in the afternoon and yesterday receiving a tour of St. Sophia's in Kiev courtesy of a Ukrainian colleague who is also an architect -- it seemed appropriate to talk about churches today.

You probably recognize this church as the one that accompanies my Monday Morning Meditation blogs. This is one of the California mission churches founded by the Franciscans. Since I have joined the Secular Franciscan Order as a candidate, this church has special meaning to me. It is not gilded or ornate in any way. It is not exceptionally large although it does have three aisles whereas most of the mission churches had only two. The floor is uneven, and one can even find animal prints in the tiles. The old pews get dusty; I know because I volunteer to clean them periodically. There is something very special about this church, though, that draws me twice on weekends and whenever possible on weekdays. I I have never failed to sense God's presence in this church -- and neither has any guest I have taken there. One feels that God loves being in our church. Perhaps that is why in more than 200 years, the church has never been without a priest or missed a mass (quite a feat considering the offering of daily masses and 5 masses in 3 languages on the weekend). And perhaps that is why on nearly any given day, if you drop in, you will find someone kneeling at one of the icons, at the altar railing, or in one of the pews in prayer.

A colleague and I, both visiting Garmisch, Germany for work reasons and having the weekend free, decided to attend mass prior to a day of separate sightseeing, he in town and I in the Austrian Alps with friends. We misunderstood the times and ended up at St. Martin's as the early mass was ending, so we returned an hour later. I am so glad we did return. St. Martin's is a beautiful church, with frescoes and ancient, straight pews built in such a way that one wonders if the early parishioners spent the entire mass kneeling -- the kneelers are considerably more comfortable than the pews. We were not there for comfort, however, and we certainly found something far greater. The parish is well-priested. Three priests presided, two sisters from the local convent did the readings, and I could not count the number of acolytes. Were our parish that rich in religious leaders! We seemed to have stumbled into the church on an important day, the 50th anniversary of the founding (with American help!) of the local convent. The homily was wonderful even though I understood at best 60% of it because my German is rusty. That mattered little because the touch of God was in that place -- and my sense of God's presence and my love of being in it is not at all rusty!

Seekirchl in Seefeld, Austria is the church that heads this post. It is so charming in winter that I had to include the winter picture (above at the top of the post) even though today was a crisp fall day. The church inside is tiny, holding perhaps 40 people at best, there being only 5 rows of differently-sized pews on each side, each holding 3-4 people. Built in the 1600s, the church has charm and history. I was told by my friends with whom I was walking about the Alps, having taken a train ride there from Germany in the early afternoon, that it is a working church but services are held only in the morning. Well, maybe next time...In the interim, there was no need for a live mass to know that God spends time in this place.

St. Oswald's, also in Seefeld, Austria has been made into a museum as a result of an incredible event that took place there. As the story goes, on the night of Holy Thursday 1384, a knight named Oswald Milser attended mass at this church. A man of great arrogance and pride, he approached the high altar with his sword drawn and a band of intimidating armed men, demanding the large host, the one normally reserved for the priest, for himself. The frightened priest handed him the host, and Milser remained standing as he took it. However, as soon as he had the host in his mouth, the knight sank into the ground up to his knees. Pale with terror, he grasped the altar with both hands, leaving imprints that can still be seen. The knight begged the priest to remove the host from his mouth. As soon as it was done, the ground became firm beneath him again, but the host turned blood-red. The humiliated knight rushed to the monastery of Stams, confessing and repenting his sin of arrogance. It is said that the knight thereafter befriended the poor and became a great servant to God. Anyone who ever has any doubt that God is present in His churches would do well to visit St. Oswald's and check out the fingerprints.

St. Sophia's church, in my mind, is the perfect one with which to end. Given the Mongol invasion, which wiped out much of Kiev, a history of battles, and the communist regime which destroyed a number of the churches in the USSR, it is amazing that St. Sophia's Cathedral is still standing. After the communists blew up St. Michael's church, the people of Kiev begged the Soviet government to leave St. Sophia's untouched, and the government, surprisingly, agreed. Perhaps it is not surprising, though, that the government agreed and that St. Sophia's outlasted the other churches. On one of the arches near the iconastas are written the words: this church shall never be moved. Hm...Seems like those words foretold God's centuries-long protection of this very large, two-story, beautiful church.

Yes, I know that where two or more are gathered together in His name, God is present, and I usually feel that presence. However, being in God's presence in a church where His people have worshiped Him for centuries always strikes me as an incredible blessing bestowed by God, who has known all of these who have loved Him throughout time and who is allowing me into their midst, even if I do not deserve to be there.