{"id":5752,"date":"2018-07-31T23:53:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T03:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=5752"},"modified":"2018-07-31T23:53:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T03:53:48","slug":"for-john-came-fasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2018\/07\/for-john-came-fasting\/","title":{"rendered":"For John Came Fasting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rose met a cat.<\/p>\n

You might remember that I\u2019ve mentioned LaBelle is haunted with stray cats. Elderly women set out salad bowls of dry food to feed them, so they\u2019re well-fed and tolerant of human company\u2013 aloof and unfriendly but tolerant. They take shelter under the porch in winter, and even make their way into our basement, if they can find the spot where the land lord didn\u2019t seal the old coal chute. They keep the neighborhood rat population down. I view them as a blessing.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, the evening of the Feast of Holy Father Saint Elijah, one of the cats walked into our window<\/a>, as I\u2019ve mentioned before. That cat had a white triangle on his nose like the peak of Mount Carmel, and I named him Elijah. I\u2019m always naming the cats for the feast on which I find them. There\u2019s Elijah who came in the window, Olia who took shelter on the porch, Dmitri who got in upstairs while I was napping and jumped on my bed, Noel whom we found in the kitchen after Christmas Eve liturgy.<\/p>\n

Rosie found her cat on the lawn one evening, the day after the feast of Saint Elijah this year. We hadn\u2019t been to church because we don\u2019t have transportation. I\u2019d prayed for Elijah to send us a car<\/em>\u00a0that I could drive to be blessed with the other cars after liturgy, but apparently I didn\u2019t enunciate the word well because Elijah sent a cat<\/em> instead.<\/p>\n

This cat was far too beautiful to be a stray. Her coat gleamed in the porch light. She was soft as velvet, black with four white paws and another white triangle on the tip of her nose just as Elijah had. She was younger than Elijah, but she resembled him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should call him Elisha,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI named her Johnny,\u201d said Rose, not realizing she was fulfilling a prophecy.<\/p>\n

The cat was extremely friendly. Rose patted her and dangled blades of grass for her to toy with while I pondered the Holy Gospel:\u00a0For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John.\u00a0And\u00a0if\u00a0you are willing\u00a0to accept it,\u00a0he\u00a0is the Elijah\u00a0who was\u00a0to come.\u00a0<\/span>He who has ears, let him hear.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I wondered if something was going to happen.<\/p>\n

Johnny came every evening. I would\u2019ve liked to bring her inside, but Michael is allergic to cats, so she remained a guest. Rose occasionally left tuna out for her, but she didn\u2019t take it, and my head rang with scripture again.\u00a0For John came fasting and they say, \u2018He has a demon.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, \u2018Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.\u2019 But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, the cat\u2019s name got changed from \u2018Johnny\u201d to \u201cJoey,\u201d and I added prayer to Saint Joseph to my meditations. But she struck me more as an Elijah, or a John.<\/p>\n

The other night at midnight we went outside to look at the stars, the way homeschoolers do, but there were none. It was overcast and humid. We were about to go back inside when Rose saw Joey or Johnny padding toward us, silent and majestic on the near-vacant street. She greeted him, and he came to rub against her leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me show you a game I taught her,\u201d she said. She took a skinny stick and ran, scraping it along the sidewalk; the cat chased it eagerly. They ran together in and out of our small front yard and all over the sidewalk: Rose giggling softly, the cat silent and determined, their long shadows stretching out in the porchlight beyond them\u2013 the silhouette of a grown woman with a giant panther, following after a little girl and a sleek cat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really have any friends except Joey,\u201d Rose remarked.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been so lonely. We don\u2019t see the children we used to know at church, and I still don\u2019t know when we\u2019ll have a car to see them again.\u00a0The children she used to play with have moved out of LaBelle or moved on to different things. The boys who let her play Power Rangers with them have grown too big and self-important to do anything with girls except tease them. The girls on the block think she\u2019s odd for disliking the usual girlish things. The older sister of the little ones she plays with across the street teases or sometimes hits her, so she doesn\u2019t go there often anymore. We\u2019re in an uncomfortable place\u2013 not having any idea when we\u2019ll move or even if we\u2019ll finally move this year; not knowing exactly how we\u2019ll get a car or when; not being able to afford to go places very often, even if Steubenville had a large number of places to go for fun. We can\u2019t even play in the back yard because of the senile neighbor I\u2019ve referred to as Miss Manners<\/a> and her German Shepherd. Miss Manners has decided that the backyard and the alley behind it belong to her, and I\u2019m tired of calling the police. Summer has been dull, cramped and lonely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could give you more friends,\u201d I said. \u201cI wish I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, I prayed for help.
\n<\/p>\n

I prayed to Saints Joseph, John and Elijah\u2013 particularly Joseph, whose icon I keep on the headboard of my bed. \u201cRose needs friends,\u201d I said. \u201cPlease give Rose friends. That\u2019s the most urgent thing. I want everything else I keep praying for too\u2013 an Eastern Catholic parish where we\u2019re welcome, a car, a house closer to Pittsburgh with a yard we\u2019re allowed to play in, financial solvency, all the things I\u2019ve been praying for for months. But in the meanwhile, please give Rose friends. I\u2019ll keep waiting to be rescued but we can\u2019t wait for friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next evening, Rose went out to play with Joey the cat again.<\/p>\n

She came when he saw her come out of the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Joey!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Bootsie,\u201d said a boy on a bicycle, riding by the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Joey!\u201d said Rose.<\/p>\n

The cat came to Rose; she patted and played with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Bootsie!\u201d said the boy again. He sat on the porch of a nearby house and continued to call the cat.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was my friend first!<\/em>\u201d snapped Rose.<\/p>\n

\u201cMind your manners,\u201d I reminded her. \u201cCats can have more than one friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cat padded over to the little boy; Rose followed cautiously.<\/p>\n

The boy introduced Joey as Bootsie, a cat he\u2019d had for seven years, since he was a baby. \u201cI let her out to go do her business\u00a0 in the evenings. She likes to be outside at night. She\u2019s called Bootise because she has four white boots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The boy introduced Rose to Bootsie\u2019s mother, a spotted cat named Dalmatian. They patted her as well, and played with her. The little boy\u2019s younger brother came to admire the cat with them. Then Dalmatian and Bootsie, formerly Joey or John, went off into the bushes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll get my bike,\u201d said Rose.<\/p>\n

The three children biked together until the street got too dark to bike safely. Then they wandered over to the boy\u2019s yard, half a block away from ours. They stayed until very late, talking of cats and of other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know how to play tag?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, but I play tag the old fashioned way\u2013 I only count as high as ten.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to play Hide and Go Seek?\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly if it\u2019s Hide and Go Seek Tag.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWatch me turn a cartwheel!\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI can do a back flip!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCan you parkour? Let\u2019s have a race!\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The wisdom of the saints is not my wisdom, but that\u2019s a mercy.<\/p>\n

(image via pixabay)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Rose met a cat. You might remember that I\u2019ve mentioned LaBelle is haunted with stray cats. Elderly women set out salad bowls of dry food to feed them, so they\u2019re well-fed and tolerant of human company\u2013 aloof and unfriendly but tolerant. They take shelter under the porch in winter, and even make their way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,897,5192,824,813,1513,550,651,746,329,3705,10,756,812,740,54,71],"tags":[6106,466,1612,477,48,122,396,6103,436,4284,408,6109,6100,6112],"class_list":["post-5752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appalachia","category-cry-of-the-poor","category-culture","category-daily-saints","category-fun","category-homeschooling","category-icon","category-interpretation-of-scripture","category-joseph","category-joy","category-manners","category-motherhood","category-mystery","category-prayers","category-prophecy","category-story","category-suffering","tag-bikes","tag-car","tag-cat","tag-church","tag-elijah","tag-friends","tag-fun","tag-hide-and-seek","tag-john","tag-joseph","tag-play","tag-stray","tag-tag","tag-tuna"],"yoast_head":"\nFor John Came Fasting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Rose met a cat. 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