The Angel Priest

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine forwarded an article to me about an angel priest. It seems on a recent Sunday morning, there was a serious car accident in Missouri in which a young woman was pinned between the steering wheel and driver's seat of her car. Try as they might, the emergency personnel were unable to extract  the young woman from the car. As the woman's physical condition sharply deteriorated, she asked for someone, anyone, to pray. Suddenly, a man clad in black wearing a clerical collar appeared, He began to pray and anointed the injured girl. Shortly thereafter, the emergency medical personnel were able to free the victim from her auto and safely transported her to hospital where she recovered from her injuries.

Once the accident had been cleared away, emergency personnel were reported as saying given the severity and extent of the young woman's injuries, it was a miracle she survived. Even more surprising, there was no image of the man dressed as a priest in any of the photos taken while the angel priest prayed with and anointed the woman. None of the photos contained an image of the man who became known as the angel priest.

A few days after the accident, a Catholic priest from a church just up the street from where the accident occurred, came forward to say he was in fact the priest who ran to the accident site to pray with and anoint the young lady. When the priest did what he could do, he returned to his church for Sunday Mass. Mystery solved- there was no angel priest. The priest responded to the need of another, praying with and anointing someone in great need.

I thought about this event off and on for several days. Would we have even heard about the wreck had it not been for the presence of the angel priest who seemingly appeared one moment and was just as quickly gone the next? How would my life change if I saw an angel doing God's work? How would all of our lives change were we to witness such an event?  I remembered words of St. Teresa of Avila, "Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. You are the eyes through which Christ's compassion is to look out to the world. Your's are the  feet with which Christ is to go about doing good. Your's are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now." Those words apply to all of us, not just lay not just clergy but all of us. We are all called to be God's angels as we serve and love one another even as Christ serves and loves us. Amen.