§ 158 The Prediction That Came True
A young woman in the confessional confided that she was afraid she had been spending some of her money foolishly.
“Spending your money foolishly calls for penance,” said the priest sternly. “How have you been spending yours?”
“Well, Father, I went to a fortune teller,” admitted the penitent.
“Oh, ho, so you went to a fortune teller, eh? Well, that’s wrong to begin with. In the first place, professional fortune tellers are most of them frauds, and in the second place, they pretend to deal with the supernatural. And what did you do for this fortune teller?”
“I gave him two dollars, Father.”
“Worse and worse—wasting your hard-earned wages on a fakir. And, in exchange for your two dollars what did he do for you?”
“He told me a pack of lies, Father, about my past and my future.”
“What did he say about your past?”
“Only a pack of lies, as I was just afther tellin’ you.”
“And what did he tell you about your future?”
“He said, Father, I would shortly be goin’ on a long, hard journey.”
“Well,” said the priest reflectively, “he may have lied to you about your past, but when he predicted that you would be going on a long, hard journey in the near future he was not far wrong, after all. You’ll do the Stations of the Cross twelve times!”