SAUCIER — Striking a match

He always saw parishioners in the hospital and anyone else who wanted a priest or just a visitor.

Once, it was a woman, pregnant and gravely ill, a stranger in town with neither friends nor family.

He became both for a short time before she died, leaving behind a son.

In an unpremeditated moment, the priest had promised to look after the baby. It was the right thing to say when she was alive, but a guilt-laden burden in her death.

A search found no relative and the child would be a ward of the state if he did not live up to his word.

He ran into a woman who once had come to him, confessing her desperate want for a family and her prayers for a man to love and marry her and father her child. As her window of fertility began to close, she was more depressed and lonely than ever.

Again without thought, he asked her if she could care for an infant son.

They did the paperwork, but she was refused. A woman had to have a husband to adopt. For her, it was the final straw, but for him a challenge to bring about what he knew should be.

He had another friend, about the age of the mother not-to-be. Still singly unfound, he agreed to marry the woman, a civil act to put a name on a paper and bring an orphan home.

It may have been a bubble off honest and the ends don’t justify the means, but sometimes the law can’t comprehend the ethics of the heart.

It began with him moving in some clothes and things to keep up appearance while he kept his own place. He had offered his name, but before long, was giving his time to help with the child.

The priest stayed in touch, talking with her, talking with him, then meeting them together.

Within a year, they stood before the altar, the little one in their arms, professing that their care for him had led to the other.

Years later, they are the only parents the boy has known and the only ones he’ll ever need.

I kidded him, a once surrogate father turned celibate matchmaker. He laughed and said, “What is the life of a priest if it is not about love?”

This reflection was originally published in the July 16, 2010, edition of The Catholic Missourian.