It was 2001 not long after my entering the Catholic Church. The reception was cold as was that October when I was engaged in marking a pile of documents I needed to sign. I had to take a number of those to the Notary Public where I was going to officially sign them.

I had them neatly organized on my dining room table, green plastic marker-flags indicated where I had to sign. About the time when I placed the last flag, I heard a sort of inner voice that told me:

“When the end comes, you will be fixing a house.”

I was a bit startled and I made sure to remember the place and date. It was not hard: I was in Charlottesville, Virginia and that day it was my birthday 22 years ago. the World Trade Center in New York City had been attacked only 31 days before experiencing that locution. The world was still reeling from that experience.

You may wonder if I am presently fixing a house at this time. The answer is yes. I am also approaching my 69th birthday on October 10, 2023.

I am not fishing for birthday wishes here. There is a method to my madness! I told you this strange anecdote before. Many years ago, I believe it was in 1962, my parents rented a house in Buenos Aires. That house was located almost in front of the local parish church, Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús (St. Thérèse of Lisieux) , near the intersection of Quirós and Bucarelli streets.

In pre-conciliar times, the Church remembered St. Thérèse on October 10. That was later changed to the first day of October. One Sunday, a few years ago, I decided to visit the old neighborhood and go  to Mass there. Imagine my surprise when I found out that church was inaugurated on October 10, 1930. That is exactly 24 years before I was born. Now 24 is also the number of years that St. Thérèse lived on earth. I thought it was a remarkable coincidence, if coincidences exist.

In the years since my baptism I noticed that I always receive some grace about the day of my birthday. It may be a simple thing: finding an object long lost, reading some extraordinary book, being given a great theme to write about, etc.

In 2001, the ‘gift’ was that locution that seems to point at this year we are living now. I wonder if I am going to get something special this year. I think I will. I’ll keep you posted (wink!)

Addendum of October 8 at 8:45 a.m.

By the way, today is the birth anniversary of Juan Peron (b. 1895 – d.1974) one of the men that managed to crush a perfectly free and good country into a hellhole of poverty, corruption, and lately: madness. Today I was blessed with a perfect cup of tea and one near perfect toast. A nice breakfast if you ask me. As I browsed through the news of the asylum planet I had a thought: why should be the fixing of a house a personal sign of the end times? 

I concluded that the sign is a marker in time and space. Obviously, time is the end times. Since most houses are built to remain in the same place, I thought the “fixing of a house” as an intersection. One has to do it at a certain place where a house has to be fixed.

It so happen that two friends who are mother and daughter, needed their future home fixed and I, being the great expert in remodeling  (I am kidding, of course) offered myself to do the work ad honorem. With God’s help, the house will be ready to be inhabited in about 45 days. The other implicit intersection is the end times which (apparently) have began to roll.