God Will Know...

There were signs on the door of the Adoration building when I parked my van to pick the kids up.  My vision is not, ahem, what it used to be, so I walked up to the stoop to have a closer look.  An elderly couple was walking to the car, and they thought perhaps I didn’t know the code to get in. 

“Would you like us to open the door for you?”  I would guess both were in their upper eighties.  Just getting to the car was a laborious process, so turning around to let me in amounted to a generous offer.

I told them I was curious about the Catholic concept of adoration.  “What does it look like?  What do you do?”  I said I was exploring the idea from my own Protestant perspective.

“Well the Catholics invented adoration hundreds of years before the Protestants came up with it!”  His wife swatted his arm.  Feisty, this one.  I decided not to share that I knew quite a bit about church history…mine and his. 

The wife was soft-spoken and kind.  She murmured a few words about their experience.  He chimed in.  “It is so peaceful.  So moving.  Such precious moments with God.”  His animated face and eyes visibly softened when he spoke of it.  It was an experience that obviously impacted him on a physical level.  “You should go in sometime and try it.”

I was surprised he extended the offer to my Protestant self.  “Is it OK for me to do that?  Even though I’m not Catholic?”  I distinctly remembered the unfortunate experience when I attempted to take communion at that same church.  I say “attempted” because the priest chased me down and took it away. 

“Well God will know you’re not Catholic.”  His wife swatted him again.  I decided not to tell him that I didn’t think God would care.  His eyes twinkled a bit.  “But the code is 2205.”

So there you go.  Funny how God invites you to adore Him.