Tradition has it that about two thousand years ago, along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, there lived a man named Jethro ben Tubizzi. He made a living repairing kitchen appliances such as oil lamps, grinding wheels, and spatulas. One Saturday afternoon, his usual day off, his neighbor, the blind Methuselah ben Hoepin, came feeling his way along the street wall to Jethro’s front door. 

“Jethro, you there?”

“Where else?”

“Did you hear? Remember that preacher man from Nazareth I told you about?”

“How could I not hear? Every time I go to a home to fix something, that’s all they talk about. Just in the last week, I’ve repaired fourteen spatulas that fanatical wives have broken over their husbands’ heads, arguing about that preacher.”

“But he’s coming here! In fact, Samuel ben Samuel ben Samuel ben Humble told me he’s on his way, right now, in this direction, coming down our street. Can’t you hear the noise?”

“Sure I heard the noise. What do you think I am, deaf? Sorry, Meth. But you won’t catch me running out after every self-proclaimed messiah. Remember my uncle Izzi? How he got caught up in the hubbub over that zealot from Bethsaida, the one who claimed miraculous catches of fish by spitting on his nets? The scribes and Pharisees went out to investigate and caught that charlatan’s disciples in the very act of delusion. The scribes noticed strange reeds sticking up out of the water around where the nets had been, cast way out in the deep water. One wise scribe decided to test the power of his own spit by drooling it down one of the reeds. Out of the deep burst a coughing disciple, who apparently had been putting fish in the nets. Uncle Izzi barely escaped with his life.”

Methuselah shook his head as he stood in the doorway. “But I’ve been told this Yeshua is not like that at all. No one, including the scribes and Pharisees, has any explanation for His miracles. It’s said that He turned water into wine, that He healed lepers and the lame, the deaf, and even the blind!”

“Meth, my old friend, you know I wish you well, but I warn you: Don’t get your hopes up, trusting in some miracle worker.”

These last words were lost in the rising noise from the street. Methuselah disappeared into the crowd that now had formed outside Jethro’s door. All he could hear was the bedlam of almost everyone in town gathering to catch a glimpse of the passing preacher. 

Jethro started to rise from his workbench, wiping his hands on a rag, but then stopped. 

“Why waste my time? And why should I even let my neighbors see me come to the window, as if I had any interest at all in this charlatan?” 

Throwing the rag across the room, Jethro returned to his work. In time the street noise grew so loud that he could no longer concentrate. He wanted to rush to the door and shout for them all to be quiet: “Have you no respect? Can’t you see I have work to do?”

But instead of working, he rose from his workbench and left his small house by the back door. It was time for a long walk out in the country away from the crazy, misguided mayhem of his neighbors.

When Jethro returned several hours later, the crowds had dispersed, except for pockets of neighbors gathered in small hushed groups. Avoiding them, he entered his house by the back door and returned to his work.

“Jethro!” came a voice from his front door, familiar, yet with a boldness he had never heard.

He turned, expecting to see the usual slumped body of his blind old friend Methuselah. Instead, before him stood a new Meth, fully erect, his arms extended in a welcoming greeting, his face beaming with joy, his smile struggling to be contained within his wrinkled face. But the most startling thing about him were his eyes, wide open and shining with their own light.

“Methuselah, what’s happened?” Jethro said, rising slowly. He dropped his tools as he realized what his friend must have gained — and what he sadly had lost.

I think of that story when I recall one particular day in October 1979. I was living in a studio apartment on Beacon Street in Boston. Three doors down was the Bull and Finch Pub, later to become famous as the setting for Cheers, where I ate three nights a week. (They may have based the character of the mailman on me!) 

Directly across the street was the beautiful and extensive Public Garden. I was taking a year off from seminary, working as an engineer while discerning whether or not God was calling me back to seminary.

I was off work and looking forward to a relaxing day, spending part of it in front of the television and the rest on a long jog along the Charles River. In passing I had heard and read that this very day Boston was being granted the great “privilege” of a visit by the new Catholic pope, John Paul II. The Boston Globe, in my view, had wasted far too many of its news pages discussing the papal visit — articles which, of course, I had no interest in reading. 

As the day progressed, the crowds came. Thousands filled the street and the Garden, but I didn’t so much as poke my head out the door. Why should I? Why should I have any more interest in a Catholic pope than if, say, the head of the Unification Church were passing by? And besides, I hate crowds.

So I escaped by the back alley door for an afternoon jog along the Charles, “far from the madding crowd.”

It wasn’t until many years later, especially on that day in 2004 when we mourned the Holy Father’s death, that I fully realized what a great privilege I had squandered. I’m not saying that the presence of Pope John Paul II outside my door was equivalent to the presence of Jesus in the story about Methuselah. Yet I have come to understand that in the very presence of the successor of Peter, we have the continuous historical fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to build His Church on Peter and his successors; the fulfillment of His promise that the gates of hell will never prevail against it; and His promise that He will be with us always. 

For many of us, the opportunity to explore the truth of the Catholic Church comes flitting into our lives only occasionally, much as in the anecdotes above. For me, except for that missed visit of the pope, the first forty years of my life went by without any thought given (that I can remember) to the possible validity of the Catholic Church. 

Then, by the mercy of grace, I became reacquainted with an old seminary friend who, as a result of his own conversion to the Catholic faith, passed along to me what he had discovered. 

Is this Lenton season possibly the moment, maybe for the first time, that the Lord is inviting you to consider the truth of the Catholic Church? A Church that claims a direct historical connection — an apostolic succession — with the very Church established by Jesus in His hand-chosen Apostles, centered on the leadership of the Apostle Peter? If so, my encouragement to you is this: Don’t be too busy to let this moment pass you by.

(This article is taken from my book, Thoughts for the Journey Home, which can be examined and purchased here.)