Four Leaf Clovers

My old book collection mainly is composed of pre-1900 religious books. Valuable? Although a few cost more than I should have paid for them, in reality only the book mites would declare them to have value. In some of them I find words which still speak to me as if they were written only yesterday. And some are intriguing because of the sense of mystery they cause me to experience as I hold them in my hands.

"The Office of Holy Week" translated in 1896 from the Italian of Abbe Alexander Mazzinelli is one such book. It has four leaf clovers tucked away in its pages. No less than five of them are still intact even though they have been dried and preserved for over a hundred years. Someone put them there. The front pages of the book have a name, Miss Mary B. Gillis of 159 Adams Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts. I wonder if she hid them within the pages. I wonder who she was. I wonder if she used the book often. I wonder what happened to it after her passing passed it on to other hands. I wonder....

To hold in my hands something which was used by another on their journey toward God makes it a thing of great value. I am only one of an unknown number who have read from those pages and closed the book with an awareness of encountering the Holy One. I would never write my name beside hers. I am content to simply be another sojourner whom it has been pointed toward God.