It's the 1970s - I'm seven years old. It's Sunday so I'm running to Mass with my two brothers. We take a shortcut through the market.
The market is closed and strewn with rubbish from Saturday: we dodge milk crates and cardboard boxes, rotting peaches, peel and bubble gum wrappers.
Source
“Hey,” calls my younger brother, “Look what I've found!”
It's a dark blue presentation box for a ring with gold hinges, lined with blue velvet and white satin. So beautiful. I want it but it's not mine so I start to pray, “Dear God, please help me find something, too.”
By now, all three of us are walking through the rubbish, our eyes glued to the ground.
“Whoa!” says my youngest brother, “Look at this!”
Such an interesting purple polystyrene eggbox - he can make a really good model out of that when we get home! I'm getting jealous now.
“Dear God, please help me find something, too,” I'm praying silently.
My eyes are still fixed to the pavement - we've another ten minutes before Mass starts. I scan blobs of gum, bus tickets, cigarette butts and empty packets, an apple core, Wimpy serviettes and receipts....
“Dear God, I really need to find something nice,” I pray, eyes fixed to the ground. I follow the curve of the road into a deserted car park....
sweet wrappers.....trodden cardboard.....newspaper.....pools forms.....more bus tickets......
I wander into the grass verge. I can see the church clock - tick tock - I have to leave right now.......
But then......
I see something glinting from the overgrown grass and bend down to pick it up.
It's a gold St Christopher medallion.
“Dear God. Thank you. I love you.”
I run to catch up with my brothers and we sprint to Mass, where I will gasp at the find with my mum.
Four and a half decades on, that medallion's long lost. I wish I could say I'd been a good Christian in the meantime - but I haven't. And I'm probably not now.
I have, however, travelled many long roads - safely. And once my husband and I were so very nearly struck by lightning that we both fell to our knees in the dusty road.
And protecting people from being struck by lightening is, according to the Bible and other sources, one of St Christopher's roles....plus carrying Jesus over the river.
Thanks be to God. In His holy name.