Olivetta from New York called me last summer and asked me if our little blossoming CL community in Phoenix would be willing to fundraise for the New York Encounter. My first thought was YES! Then, NO! (I’m too busy, right?) And then enthusiastically YES! (again) How could I say no to such a proposal when the NYE has been such a huge part of my formation? I had heard the Houston community had been successful in fundraising so I looked to them for ideas, but nothing really caught my attention. And then it hit me, “Why not do a show?”

It had been 10 years since I performed and I desperately missed it. Actually, until I had heard Msgr. Albacete speak at the NYE about the thwarted love that Pope St. John Paul II had for the theatre did I come to peace with the moralistic guilt surrounding my own theatrical desires. I felt a renewed kinship with the late Pope and decided to pray to him to do something with this creative itch. I figured if anyone understood, he did. He gave up the theatre to answer a different calling and so did I. I didn’t realize at the time that the possibility of saying no to the fundraising proposal would, at the same time, have been the possibility for saying no to one of my own desires being fulfilled. The answer to my need was so obvious I almost missed it.

Grace never works in one direction. The play-reading ended up being an encounter of its own and every single prayer I had for it was answered: it was fun, funny, communal, and it was something new for those who performed and for those who attended (who doesn’t like to drink sidecars whilst watching a British comedy?) And we raised a little bit of money too. In the end, I know it’s about faithfulness and not success, (Mother Teresa) but isn’t it grand when both happen?