ANGELS UNAWARE
It was 4:30 am, a blustery December morning in D.C. I had been there the day before for meetings, and my flight home scheduled for the night before had been cancelled due to ice and snow. I was on stand-by for the first flight out Wednesday morning, if I could get to the airport be-fore 5:00 am.
My mood was hardly the best.
I hailed a cab.
I was tired, cold, coughing. The driver had the radio on. We listened to news of shootings of kids on a school bus, bombings, and assassinations in the Middle East, war in various places around the world.
Christmas seemed far away, long ago.
The cabbie observed how dangerous the world was. After the news, he told me he and his family had fled a war-torn nation as refugees.
I commented on how his job—driving a cab in the middle of the night in a city hardly known for its safety—was far from safe.
He turned on the light and pointed to the sun visor above him. There was an image of the Madonna and Child (Mind you, he had no way of knowing I was a priest, as I had my scarf wrapped around my neck, covering my clerical col-lar.) “Jesus and Mary are my only protection,” he in-formed me. “Yes, danger is everywhere. We can only be truly safe with them.”
Some angel—a messenger from heaven—usually crosses my path every year as Christmas nears. When I entered Reagan National Airport, “Silent Night” was on the speak-er. This year’s angel came in the guise of a cabbie.
I’m glad I left him a good tip.
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Doers of the Word ~ Putting Your Faith Into Practice
