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My attachment to the ring was not so much because of its beauty or value but rather because of the loving attachment I had to my beautiful, holy Grandmother Finn. I was left the ring when she died, and I wore it with blessed memories.
For 30 years the ring was a constant reminder of my grandmother’s faith in Jesus, of her love, her humility, her patience, and her kindness. Grandma was a true treasure and her eyes sparkled quietly like her diamond.
I wore that ring for the past thirty years as a constant reminder of her love and tenderness for me. It never left my hand except at night when I took it off or if I washed my hands to put lotion on.
When I went to put my ring on one Saturday morning, it was gone! I looked all over, everywhere. I ransacked the house. No one had been in my apartment.
I was utterly sick. Could it have mistakenly gone out into the garbage? Did I wash my hands and somehow throw it out? I rummaged through the garbage over and over again. My precious ring was gone!
The next three weeks I beat myself up, cried, and wondered how careless could I be! I was grieving the loss of that ring.
As I prayed for and about the ring, I began to slowly let it go. Maybe God was showing me, again, not to hold onto any earthly thing. I knew the memory of my grandmother would always be in my heart, ring or no ring.
On a Wednesday evening, just prior to Easter, I decided I needed to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would help me make a heartfelt and meaningful confession.
“I have not died to myself enough or embraced my pain enough, or saw Christ in every person I met enough. I was not grateful for everything and had failed in surrendering completely to Christ.”
During my confession, Father asked me why I was so hard on myself. I began to cry and tell him about the lost ring.
“Was it a diamond ring?” he asked. I responded “yes.”
He told me that a diamond ring had been found. He got up and went to the sacristy to retrieve a ring a lady had found in the snow bank outside of church!
“It can’t be my ring,” I was thinking. Father came back with a little plastic bag in his hand. I looked and there was my grandmother’s ring!
My heart pounded. I was breathless. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How did that ring get here?
A woman had found it in a snow bank, put it in a little plastic bag and left it on the pamphlet rack in the east vestibule. Another woman picked it up and gave it to Father. He said he didn’t know the lady who gave it to him or what he was going to do with it. He had put it away until now.
I tell you this was truly a miracle! I never took my ring off in church. It was never loose on my finger. I usually do not enter by the east door. Why did I mention that ring in confession? How did it get to St. Pius X Church? How did this wonderful woman find it in a snow bank? Why didn’t she keep the ring? Why didn’t the second lady keep it? Truly a miracle happened!
Praise be to Our Lord, Jesus Christ for all his blessings to me! The Lord is always with me and his love never fails. The Sacrament of Reconciliation brought me once again God’s love, his grace, and his forgiveness and this time, it even brought me tangible proof of his love for me.
The author is a longtime friend of Madonna House..
