Excerpt from Tale of a Mission Cat (Sula): Sitting with Someone Needing Comfort

Sitting with Someone Needing Comfort

There are many kinds of people to whom God sends me. All of them are hurting in some way, and it is my mission to help them hurt less.

Some people have done bad things and don’t feel good about themselves. They don’t believe that God can forgive them, but God does. One person once told another parishioner, as I sat on his lap, that he had hurt animals when he was a child, had prayed about it a lot, but had never felt absolved even though he had spoken about it in confession. I guess that is why God sent me to him. He said that my sitting on his lap helped him to understand, accept, and believe that he had been forgiven. 

Yes, of course, he had. As a cat whose like kind had been among those he had hurt, I forgave him, too. After all, if God forgives us, then we can forgive others, which, of course, is what He wants us to do.

In some cases, I have a sad mission. Something bad is going to happen to the person who is my mission, and God helps to prepare them for it by providing some advance comfort and peace from my sitting with them. In one case, I sat beside a spiritually beautiful lady at her last confession. Later, I was in the church for her funeral. Sitting with someone as they are dying is a very important mission—for anyone. Dying is holy ground, and sharing the moments before death is walking on holy ground.

In other cases, God sends me to people who are feeling sorry for themselves. I did mention I had cancer, right? Actually, I lost both of my ears to cancer, so I don’t look like every other cat. People who have become disabled or disfigured can relate to me. They understand what I experience when someone points at me and says, “What happened to the cat?” I know I am beautiful to God no matter what my body looks like. So, when people are cruel in their comments, intentionally or unintentionally, I ignore them, knowing that the only important opinion is God’s, and He loves me just as I am. Seeing me without my ears often helps those who are feeling sorry for themselves to put their troubles into a different perspective.

Usually, the special person who is my mission will invite me to sit on his or her lap when I let out a quiet miao or if I nudge him or her a little bit. It is always warm and cozy on my special mission’s lap. It makes me feel very close to the Boss. After all, there is a God seed in all of us—whether or not we are covered with fur—and finding God in people is something easy for me to do though I hear people talk about not liking each other sometimes. How can that be if God is in each of us? That would be like not loving God.

Not all that infrequently, my time at Mass ends, after having accomplished my mission of sitting with someone, with that person or someone nearby giving me a scarf, shawl, or coat to sleep on. I curl up while they go for Communion, and when they return, they let me rest. We all need to rest sometimes. That is why God made night. God Himself rested. That is a good example for us to follow.

From Tale of a Mission Cat

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