But one Saturday night, Fr. Joseph was too tired to go. So he gave the archbishop instructions on how to get to the ice cream store by subway so that he could go alone.

 “Be very careful coming home,” he told him, “because if you miss this stop you will go to the end of the line which is in a very bad neighborhood.”

Around midnight Fr. Joseph’s phone rang. It was the archbishop. “I missed the stop,” he said. “I’m at the Wobbly Duck Café, just across from the subway station.”

“Stay inside,” Fr. Joseph told him. “I’ll come and get you.”

When Fr., Joseph arrived, he saw, not the Wobbly Duck Café but the Wobbly Duck Bar. And outside of it were some motorcycles and some very rough-looking people.

When Fr. Joseph entered the bar, he found the place in total silence. There were boys with girls and boys with boys and some he couldn’t tell which was which. And there sitting on a barstool was the archbishop telling everyone about how much God loved them. Some of the people were crying.

“God loves all of you,” the archbishop was saying, “no matter what you think of yourself, no matter what sins you may have committed. God has no favorites. You are all special in his eyes. He even loves that fat priest by the door. And tomorrow you are all invited to l0 o’clock Mass at St. Joseph’s parish.”

Sure enough, at 10 o’clock the next morning, they arrived at the church en masse. The parishioners had stunned expressions on their faces. In his homily the archbishop spoke about God’s love for everyone and how important it is not to judge each other. Then he invited everyone downstairs for coffee after Mass.

At the coffee hour, the parishioners welcomed these strangers. And Fr. Joseph, when he told this story said, “For the rest of my life, I’ll never forget the Wobbly Duck.”