Father Lloyd and Me

Yesterday, I had a morning appointment at Cornell-New York Hospital with my neurologist. He's an unusually pleasant man,  whose only fault in my eyes is that he's so laid-back that I sometimes fear he'll tip his chair  over backward.

Afterward, I met Father Lloyd for lunch. This is a ritual I observe whenever my hospital appointments are on a weekday. Seeing one another pleases us both. I think my visits please him because I remind him about his good will and patience toward me when, as a reluctant catechumen, I took the Paulist Center conversion class three times. I must have asked a thousand questions--only because I controlled my desire to ask more. The visits please me because, at ninety-two, he remains the most open "dinosaur" (his word, not mine). I enjoy his enormous pleasure in my ongoing love for the Church, and how he examines and re-examines the meaning for him of his own father's Jewishness. Most of all, though, what bonds us is how visceral our faith is in God.  The same. The One.