Even though I could easily afford it, I was planning to camp that night instead of staying in the hotel, but as I was unpacking my tent, I thought, “This isn’t right,” and I went and found the young man. I asked if he would like to share a hotel room with me. He immediately agreed and was very grateful. He was clean-cut, wearing a sweater, and had a strange foreign accent that sounded like German but wasn’t.

We checked into the hotel and he went in to take a shower. I dropped my stuff on my bed and went out for a walk. When I came back, the young man had seen that I had left a book by Benedict Groeschel on my bed. He asked if I was Catholic. I said, yes. Then he asked if I knew St. Anthony. Anthony is my name, and I explained that Anthony of Padua is my patron saint. Then he pulled out his wallet and showed me a picture of himself dressed in clericals with several other people. The young man was a priest of the diocese of Budapest, Hungary. A parishioner had given him this trip as a gift but he had no money for “extras” like overnight lodging.

Then the young priest told me that, upon arriving in this little town, he had gone to the edge of town to pray at a small shrine by the road. He had lain down in the shrine, intending to sleep there for the night, but he said that next, “St. Anthony told me that if I went back into town I’d find a place to stay the night.”

You never know what a small act of kindness will accomplish, if you follow the lead of the Spirit. I was greatly strengthened in my faith by this encounter, and as for the priest–I never saw him again. But just maybe I’ve made a friend forever.