Mrs Brady on Chick-fil-A

I don’t know when I’ve been happier to see someone walk up the street to my home! I feel like I’ve been weeding this flowerbed for hours, and in this heat, why I’m just about to melt! I was going to keep going, but now you’re here I can get myself a nice cold glass of lemonade and we can sit on the porch for a spell. Would you mind taking these gloves and my hat? There. That’s a help. Come right up and have a seat and I’ll be out in a minute just as soon as I freshen up. I”m going to bring you a nice lemonade dear, and would you like a slice of key lime pie with that? Just shoo that cat off the chair. He doesn’t mind. There now, that’s better. Phew! You know I used to complain about the heat and how much I used to perspire, but then I realized that it’s just the way the good Lord made us–we’re supposed to perspire. It helps cool us down! So I don’t complain anymore, and if I’m inclined to complain just a little I think of the poor sisters in Africa who wear those long habits and don’t even have air conditioning! I get a letter from Sister Mary Magdalene once a month. She’s the Benedictine nun I sponsor out in Ghana. Sweet thing. They rescued her from the most horrible life and she’s so happy at the convent. Why yes I did go to Chick-fil-A last week dear. Went three times just for fun! What a nice, gentle and American way to make your voice heard! Just as ordinary as going out for a chicken sandwich, and so many people turned up and nobody shouting and screaming and making a fuss! Then you know my grandson Danny showed me a video on the computer. Well, I never! It was shocking! He said that when he went to Chick-fil-A with some friends he was accused at college of eating ‘hate chicken’. Well I laughed! As if a chicken sandwich could hate anybody! But when he showed me the video there was a sweet looking Catholic priest praying the rosary and these people surrounded him and were screaming and shouting. My word! And to think they were the ones who said the ordinary folk who went to Chick-fil-A were hateful! I can’t understand it dear, I must say. Maybe I’m getting to old, but I never thought I’d see the day when we’d have such ugliness on the streets of our nation! Danny said I ought to hear what they say at college. I know most of them are young and full of bravado, and maybe they’ve had a few drinks, but Danny says they hate Catholics and they mock the faith and that some of them say they’d gladly lock up all the priests and close all the Catholic schools and hospitals if they could. Good heavens! Do you think it would come to that? What would you do dear? You’ve a husband and five beautiful little children. I’d like to think I could be like St Margaret Clitherow. She hid priests in the dark times in England, and they caught her and crushed her to death. Think of it! I’m afraid I don’t know what I’d do if terrible times came along. I don’t suppose we’ll know who the true heroes are until the persecutions come. If I’ve read my history right it usually turns out to be a surprise–that person you thought was a lazy Catholic stands up for the faith and is taken away while that person you thought was a great hero slinks off as a coward. I think I’m rather like that little girl in the Flannery O’Connor story who said something like  “I don’t think I could be a saint, but maybe I could be a martyr if they killed me quick.”  Isn’t that funny? Well, I laughed. I suppose we’re all a bit like that aren’t we?