It was Valentine’s Day several years ago and it began like any regular day, with Holy Hour at 5:30 am.   I sat there, as a true romantic, waiting for God to woo my heart all over again as we celebrated this day for lovers. 

But I was a little distracted because I was cooking dinner that night and somehow needed to come up with 1 cup of chicken broth for my recipe.  With no chicken or bouillon cubes in the house this was going to be quite a task. 

So, as I prepared for mass that morning, I read the above quote in the Magnificat, refocused and asked the Lord to help me be open to see these “love letters he is tossing on the street and everywhere”. 

And then the chaos began! 

I heard a cry!  Now, normally we keep silence before 9AM because it is a time for us to be quiet with our Beloved.  So when I heard this yell I knew something was askew.  A sister hollered down the stairs, “The water won’t shut off in the bathtub!” 

Now the house is nearly 100 years old, so all of the shutoffs are in the basement and are not well marked.  She ran downstairs and we began yelling back and forth, “OK, I turned one off.  Did it stop?”  “No, it’s still gushing.”  This continued for several minutes when the doorbell rang. 

It was the priest coming to celebrate mass for us.  He jumped into the pandemonium and became the middle-man relaying our questions and responses.  “Why don’t you call a plumber?” he calmly asks after several minutes.   Yes, a plumber! 

One was called but, alas, there was no answer.  The door bell rang again.  Who could it be this time since the priest is already here?  We weren’t expecting anyone. 

I opened the door and a good friend of our community stood there with a 5-gallon pot half full of…you guessed it… CHICKEN BROTH!!!  Not just a cup of it but several gallons of it!  He explained that he boiled a chicken the day before and just thought we might want to use the broth. 

I took the pot, thanked him profusely, told him how he was an answer to prayer because of my chicken broth woes, and he turned to be on his way.  Then the sister called upstairs, “Who was at the door?”  

When I told her who it was she cried out, “HE’S THE PLUMBER!”

So, in reflecting on the events of the morning I came to understand in a deeper way just how many times His love letters really are “on the street and everywhere”.  They are not just in the whispers He speaks to our hearts in the chapel but in the normal everyday events of life, if only we have the eyes to see His personal love and care for us!  

Two prayers were answered in that one package that God sent to our front door early that Valentine’s morning.

Oh, and yes, I was able to call after our plumber as he walked down our steps and he was able to fix our plumbing issues!  

-Sr. Sophia Grace Huschka