Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Lost and Found

This past weekend I was reunited with two things I thought I’d lost. The first was my planner, that indispensable book by which I keep my life more or less organized. On Saturday I couldn’t find it, so for more than an hour I frantically searched my bedroom, office, and car but came up empty. Finally I said to myself, in the words of a friend of mine who often says such things, “When what you have lost wants to be found, it will find you.” Not less than two minutes later I walked by my car and there was the planner, sitting on the dashboard. I’d focused so much on the front seat and the floor that I’d never even looked at the dash; but when I relaxed I saw it.

The second reunion was with the Bible I’d lost in March. Actually, it had been stolen, along with all the other things in my briefcase, in Kansas City. I figured it was gone for good; but the same day I found my planner, a package appeared in my mailbox with a Kansas City postmark. The Bible was inside, undamaged and in the same blue box it had been in when it was stolen. My friend would probably have said that my Bible must have gone to a lot of work to get back to me, finally finding someone willing to spend six dollars to send it back to me.

But whether it had been through my own calming down or the unexpected kindness of a stranger, I recovered things I’d lost. And, to be candid, I think that my prayers to St. Anthony probably had something to do with it, too.