Once Upon A Time...
It was September 16th, 1939. The next day I was leaving for Providence, RI to enter the pre- novitiate of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. My father had been concerned that I was making a mistake and that I would never be happy in this kind of life. Nonetheless he gave his consent and was going to accompany me on the trip to Providence. The plan was that we were to go to New York and stay in a hotel overnight and travel to Providence the next day. The evening in New York we were to go to a nightclub where we would have dinner and some entertainment. I had just purchased an overnight bag which I was packing for our overnight in New York. As I was doing this, my father came in and without saying a word, took a penknife from his pocket and began to cut the lining away from the corner of my brand new overnight bag. "What are you doing"? I almost shouted! He said nothing ­ just continued to do what he thought he had to do. Then, he took his wallet from his pocket, pulled out a band new $20.00 bill, folded it carefully and put it in the space between the lining and the overnight bag. Then he looked at me and said, "When you want to come home, that will be enough to take you to New York, get a room in a hotel and call me, and I will come and get you." I smiled to myself but didn't say anything. He was so sure I was not going to stay!

Some five years later after I had pronounced my first vows and was in nurses' training, I took my overnight bag with me on a retreat that I was making in another one of our convents. Along around the second evening of the retreat, I pulled my overnight bag from under the bed where I had put it, and opened it to get something that I needed. As I did this, I noticed suddenly one corner where the lining was coming away from the bag and the memory came back. " Could it be that the $20.00 bill was still there"? I put one finger in and sure enough there it was! Poor papa! He wanted to be sure I would be all right. I gave the $20.00 to the Superior and told her the story. She laughed with me and afterwards told the whole community of my long ago gift of $20.00 which she would now send to the missions and it would get there ahead of me. I often think of that gift of $20.00 that my father gave me with so much love, but above all that, all the gifts of Love that have come to me from the loving hands of my Father in Heaven.

Sr. Mary Salome Bayer, fmm