Testimony of faith. ” Since that day…”
ABOUT A DOZEN YEARS ago, on vacation in Aveyron with friends, we visited my sister in a neighboring village. I take a seat in the back of the car. About a hundred and fifty meters from our destination, on a narrow sloping lane, facing the car, an old green John Deere tractor descends at high speed, a tool swinging above the driving position. We exclaim: “He’s crazy! It's serious to drive like that! » While driving, my friend pulls over as best he can, almost at a stop, lets him pass, then parks in front of my sister's house, in the village square.
My friends go to her house while I linger to greet an acquaintance. It was then that a man with a livid face came towards me, staggering: “I had to kill you! » The thought that he is drunk crosses my mind. I make him sit on a bench. He continues: “You were in that car, I had to kill you. How did you do ? » Taken aback, I don’t answer. “Didn’t you see that I no longer had any brakes? The path is too narrow to cross. I'm a bodybuilder, I have a good eye. Your faces are engraved in me forever. I threw my tractor at the first dry stone wall I saw to avoid disaster. »
After lunch, we go to see the tractor which collapsed the wall, a few dozen meters after having avoided us. Aware of having escaped death, we remain silent. “It’s your God who protected us,” comments my friend whose benevolent atheism I know.
Back home, in the Paris region, a few days later, I unpacked my luggage. Once emptied, I found a “miraculous medal” from rue du Bac. For me, the obvious is obvious: we have been protected. A practicing Catholic, I sometimes went to pray for friends at the apparition chapel on rue du Bac in Paris, but my faith centered on Christ left little room for devotion to Mary. Since that day, I have worn the medal around my neck. I feel like it helps me with my difficulties – I have to support my sister who has Alzheimer's. During the day, I cry out more easily to the Lord: “My God, help me. » And I don't collapse. And I add a Hail Mary to the Our Father at the end of my daily prayer.
