The time of love
I had done with the morning and was looking forward to having lunch with the wife. Instead, I received an urgent call from her. Our car had stalled, something not quite right with the clutch, and she asked me if I could come and see to the matter. A taxicab took me to the site, about three kilometres away. The car, hazard lights on, was parked at the foot of a flyover. Thankfully, the car engine was still running and so the wife still had the benefit of the air conditioning, no small remission in this oppressive weather.
We decided to call for a mechanic. After checking, the man recommended that the car be towed to a shop for better evaluation, and then with his companion withdrew to the shade on the side of the road where they had parked their pickup to await the arrival of the towing equipment. All the while, the wife and I stayed in the car, and since lunch would be delayed, we scoured the inside for leftover food. Afterwards, we prayed the rosary.
Just then a cop arrived. A car with flashing hazard lights parked at the foot of the flyover for almost an hour would almost certainly catch the attention of such as he. When he peeped and saw a couple inside fingering rosary beads, he got even more perplexed. After we talked to him, immediately he directed the traffic to allow the towing vehicle, which had arrived in the meantime, to position itself and its operator to haul our car atop it.
The reason I’m narrating this is that lately I have been trying to make the Daily Examen, a method of reviewing one’s day which St. Ignatius Loyola prescribes in his Spiritual Exercises. The examen has five steps: (1) to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received; (2) to ask grace to know our sins and cast them out; (3) to ask account of our soul from the hour that we rose up to the present Examen, hour by hour, or period by period: and first as to thoughts, and then as to words, and then as to acts; (4) to ask pardon of God our Lord for the faults; and (5) to purpose amendment with His grace.
Here is a more contemporary version of the five steps: (1) become aware of God’s presence; (2) review the day with gratitude; (3) pay attention to your emotions; (4) choose one feature of the day and pray from it; and (5) look toward tomorrow.
That night I used these steps to look at our day through, to rephrase D. H. Lawrence’s words, the right end of the telescope of time, which is directed towards eternity. I was brimming over with thanks for the wife’s safety (she could have driven to the top of the flyover and the car could have teetered between rolling back or forward, with unimaginable consequences either way), for the help of the policeman and the mechanic, the safe transport of the car to the shop where it stayed only for one day). As to my emotions, they were surprisingly stable, and the rosary helped not just in the waiting but also in the steadying of my nerves.
Article continues after this advertisementI really felt God’s presence. It helped that I was reading a passage from John, in which Jesus said:
Article continues after this advertisement“As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”
Nothing extraordinary happened that day, just people doing what they were expected to do. Without delay and with encouraging words the taxicab driver took me to the stalled car where the wife was. The mechanic came to look into the cause of the stalling, and the policeman to inquire if there was any foul play and then to manage the traffic to make it easy for us to leave. The operator of the towing equipment arrived not a second late to install the chains, straps and harness and haul the car to the shop, which fell to repairing our vehicle without interruption.
“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,” Jesus said. Which was what everybody did that day, since everybody seemed to me to be geared up and all set, without being loud about it, to bestow kindness—whether in thought, word or deed.
And that was enough. “[W]here there is love, what can be wanting?” said St. Augustine. “And where it is not, what is there that can possibly be profitable?”
