pass it on

It started out the way every Saturday morning has started lately. I had spent the night in the city, and my usual move the next morning would be to go to my local diner for a breakfast before heading home. Everything was in order until I came to the corner where the diner is located. All of the parking spots were filled, so I rounded the block and had to park my car on a heavily traveled street. After finding a spot as close to the corner as was possible, I exited the car and found myself directly in front of a Catholic book store. I may be a spiritual man, but even though I was born Catholic, I've wandered from the church over the years. But as it turns out, I had had a discussion with someone just recently involving the Old Testament, so it would seem logical that I should get a bible and read it to confirm what we had spoken of. I only had a couple of dollars on me, just enough for coffee and a breakfast dish, but I thought it would be a nice distraction to go in and find out how much a bible might cost. Then I could come back and purchase one.
I might add at this time that my clothes weren't exactly new, I had gone out the night before with my work clothes on, so I looked the part of a vagabond to say the least.
Anyway, I went in and started looking around for the bibles. There were none to be found, a lot of trinkets, some mass cards and the like, but no bibles. I was about to leave when a nice woman came in from a back room and asked if I needed help. I told her why I was there, and at that moment an older gentleman spoke up and pointed to the bibles stacked up on the wall behind the cash register. He told her to show me a sample of one of them. The first one she brought down was big, full of pictures and cost somewhere around 60 dollars. I passed on that one, not that I'm cheap, but I just thought that was a bit more than I was willing to pay. He either heard my reply or noticed by my body language when told how much, that this wasn't going to do. The next thing he did caught me off guard. He told the counter girl to bring another one down, it cost 25 dollars, and when she showed this one to me, I heard him say, give him that one. I'll pay for it.
I turned to him to explain that I was only looking today, I would be back to pay for it on another day, when he told her that he would also bless it.
Now I was getting a little embarrassed, but I've had conversations with priests in the past. I thought that if I explained my situation, he would understand and back off. Nothing doing. We huddled at the counter, made the sign of the cross, he blessed the book and paid for it and now I was the proud owner of a new bible.
I asked him what parish he was from so I could pay him back or make a donation to it, and he wouldn't give me a clue.
At this point, I realized that it would be futile to go on with the conversation, so I took the book and thanked him for his generosity and left to have my breakfast.
After I had finished with this great breakfast, I went back to that store to find out from the clerk who this mystery priest was. She told me his name and also told me that he was a retired Monsignor from a parish in Syracuse, NY.
This was not good news for me, as the thought of going to Syracuse to try and pay him back probably wouldn't happen. So I just shrugged my shoulders at her and left thinking of how lucky I was to have a bible that had been blessed by this man.
A couple of weeks later, I was in an old train station to meet a friend of mine.
I knew I was early so I decided to go over to a little newsstand that was inside the station to buy a couple of lottery tickets.
As is my usual style, I struck up a conversation with the woman at the counter, just to pass the time while I scratched off my potential winnings. The conversation was polite, but as it was about to conclude, another woman came up to me and asked if I knew how far it was to Herkimer. This seemed a little odd for her to do, but I told her it was about 25 miles down the road, then went about my business of finishing off my tickets. I knew my friend would be coming within a couple of minutes, so I was hurrying to get going. Just then, the counter woman explained to me that the other woman was stranded, without transportation, and needed a ride to that town. Now I might be a nice guy, but the thought of driving that far to help her out wasn't in the cards for that day.
But, then a thought occurred to me, I looked at the counter girl and smiled. The cost of a taxi from the train station to Herkimer just happened to cost 25 dollars. Pass it on, I now read that bible comforted by the fact that I did indeed have a chance to pay the Monsignor back.