Quite a flight

Today is the anniversary of my appointment to Ambricourt. Already three months! I prayed hard this morning for my parish, my poor parish—perhaps my first and last parish, because I would like to die here. My parish! I can’t speak those words without deep emotion, or more exactly, without a great surge of love. At the same time, I become aware of my own confusion. I know that she exists, that we have been given to one another for all eternity, because she is a living cell of the imperishable Body of Christ and not a simple administrative fiction. But I would like the good Lord to open my eyes and my ears so that I might see her face and hear her voice. Am I asking too much? My parish’s face! Her expression is surely gentle, sad, patient—much like my own, I imagine, at least at those moments when the inner struggle subsides and I allow myself to be propelled along by that immense invisible river that carries us pell-mell, both the living and the dead, into the depths of eternity. It…