Angels Among Us

Baptismal font at historic Christ Church, Lancaster County, VA

I was intrigued by the story that went around a week or so ago about the "mysterious angel priest" who appeared to pray with a woman who was trapped in a car after an accident.

Now the mystery has been solved solved. The priest has come forward, and his name is Patrick Dowling. Not the same Father Dowling as the one portrayed on TV by Tom Bosley in the late 1980's solving mysteries in Chicago, but the coincidence about the names is interesting.

Many of us want to believe that angels move among us, guarding us if possible or at least attending us in some way. Many of us have stories of the mysterious person who seems to come out of nowhere at just the right moment to help us.

I well remember the time I was driving in a snowstorm with my two sons in the back of the minivan, anxious about the driving conditions, wishing my husband were with me to at least share the burden of worry.   The snow was getting deeper and I was beginning to think I ought to stop, but I was out in the country, amid fields and trees and not much else. Stopping didn't seem to make all that much sense since the snow was only going to continue to deepen.

I may have said a prayer. Or I may have just radiated anxiety, which is how I pray sometimes.

Suddenly a little red truck with two men appeared on the road in front of me. Despite its small size, their vehicle made deep tracks in the snow, and so I gratefully followed directly in those tracks for half an hour or so, until the snow began to thin and the road became clear. That's where they turned off, and I continued on my way.

Angels? I've always thought so.

So if you were one of those guys in the little red truck that day, don't tell me. Let me keep my story of angelic intervention the way it is. Because that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thanks.