(78) Truth, and nothing but!

26. 9. 2023

My distant nephew lives in a distant country. His long-deceased father, my cousin, and I used to be good friends. This nephew, whom I have never met in person, discovered me in his father's correspondence, found me on the Internet, and we have been corresponding for about ten years now. At first, I sent him photos and my memories of his father, but in recent years we have been writing about events in our Families. One of those events in his Family is worth mentioning.

This nephew has an eighteen-year-old son. This son recently had his graduation exams. Together with two of his friends, members of the local skinny youth, he has a not very good reputation in their small town. In addition, during the entire long years of high school, these three did not get higher than a little bit from the bottom with their grades. So, they barely progressed from year to year, and suddenly there are graduation exams, the results of which will determine the direction for the next life.

A few weeks before graduation, the local Catholic archbishop visited their town. My nephew, together with his son and his two friends, decided to look at the archbishop. They listened to the mass and after it they were invited to the lawn behind the church to talk to the archbishop.

They stood there for a while until it was their turn and the archbishop stood in front of them, in a high cap, in his impressive cloaks, and asked my distant nephew that "and you, my son, what should you tell me about yourself?"

My nephew says that he doesn't have much to say for himself, but "my son here, and his two friends have graduation in a week and our whole family is desperate because the boys have little hope of making it through the graduation exams."

The archbishop waved his hand: "Don't worry about it, God knows how to deal with worse situations." Then he turned to the boys, touched each of them with two fingers, waved the sign of the cross in front of them, and walked to the next group of people.

When my nephew got his hands on the results a few weeks later, he couldn't believe his eyes: his son passed the graduation exams with the best possible grades! And not only that, his two friends did too, all three of them finished as the best of their entire year!

A few weeks later, the son of my distant nephew got a job at the best local university, moved to the capital near that school – and now I'm waiting for more news...

Added on 26/04/2024.

At the end of 2023, several people were shot dead at the same university. This son of my distant nephew was sitting on a tram on his way to the same university short while before the event. A phone rang in his pocket, from which he learned that the lecture had been cancelled and postponed to a later date. The boy got off the tram and waited for another one that was going in the opposite direction. At home, he heard about the shooting... That the archbishop's blessing would still work???