I had a conflict yesterday. Ash Wednesday services at my home congregation, Tree of Life Lutheran Church, begin at 7:00. But I'd been invited to read at a poetry night at a bookstore about a half hour away. That was scheduled for 8:00. It seemed rude to show up about 8:40 or so, after most of the others have read, as if I'm the headliner and they're the warm-up acts. I wanted to do both -- make an appearance on the local writing scene and have a worship experience to start my Lenten spiritual housecleaning.

I solved the dilemma by choosing to attend the noon Mass in the Catholic parish I grew up in. I'm a card-carrying, envelope-filling member of a Lutheran congregation, but I'm a Bishop McDevitt High School grad married to a practicing Catholic. It's not exactly a dual citizenship -- more like keeping a sweater or a pair of comfy slippers at your mom's house after you've gotten your own place.

My decision, however, left me feeling a little uneasy. I was bending rules and making choices to suit myself, and I wondered if this was the best way to begin a season of spiritual renewal.

Although it's  been several years since I visited this particular church, I feel an easy familiarity there. The neighborhood has experienced some decline, but the church is in good repair and really hasn't changed much in the thirty-odd years since my family moved to the suburbs. Ash Wednesday draws a larger than usual crowd, maybe a hundred and fifty to the regular noontime dozen, more business people and office workers than usually appear among the retired folk and the stay-at-home parents.

Things proceeded in the customary way -- reading, brief homily, the imposition of ashes, communion. All had returned to their pews, and the priest was seated while the deacon put the elements back in the tabernacle, bowed, and descended the high altar steps to face the congregation and pronounce the final blessing.

A noise at the back of the church made everyone turn. (This is a large church in the old stone arch and marble floor style, built to resemble New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.) Someone called out, "Wait!" Like the others, I turned to look.

I saw a man in tattered clothes, his hair caught in a ponytail that dangled to his waist. He was supporting himself on two aluminum canes, the kind that have a wrist sleeve. Although his gait was steady, the twist of his legs made him move slowly. As he made his way up the center aisle, the deacon again mounted the high altar and retrieved the bread and wine.

He served the man communion, all alone at the front of the altar. The man stood there, his head bowed, as the deacon once again put the elements away. Then he moved to the side aisle and began his journey back. The Mass proceeded to its conclusion. I looked for the man afterward, but couldn't find him.

The image of that lone communicant stayed with me all day. In Sunday School at Tree of Life we've just studied John 5, the story of the lame man who can't get into Beth-zaida's healing waters in time. Others who move more quickly or who have some assistance can rush in at the appropriate moment, but by the time this man arrives, the pool is no longer stirring and the opportunity has passed.

Jesus asks him if he wants to be made well, and then heals him, despite the fact that it is the sabbath, despite the fact that the manner in which the healing is requested and conveyed is not the way these things are customarily accomplished, despite the fact that others might be uncomfortable with or even outraged by what has happened.

I had chosen Mass at Our Lady's as a compromise, because I thought I ought to go to church somewhere on Ash Wednesday. I expected a standard liturgical setting for my own personal entry to Lent, with a side trip down Memory Lane to the smells and bells of my childhood.

What I got was a demonstration of Jesus's love in action, of the question "What Would Jesus Do?" not as a slogan but as call to respond with deeds and not ideas.