Encountering the poor can be disturbing

During the First Sunday of Advent Mass this noontime, I saw the crippled old man who goes to daily Mass. It was the blessing of senior citizens after the prayer after communion when I noticed him. Since the priest asked them to go near the altar for the blessing, he also went there though he struggled in standing up and walking. He went there unassisted. It got the thinking, was he born crippled or he got a stroke? Because of the way he walks, he can be mistaken as a beggar just like I did when I first saw him. I find his identity mysterious. He dresses simply with a white shirt, shorts, and slippers, and brings along a hand bag with him every time he enters the Cathedral. He even got a proper haircut than I (blame the Nazorite challenge this November where I suspend haircut and shave this month).  He is thin and dark. His face wrinkled. I heard stories about him sometimes not being able to ride the jeepney because of the way he looks. And whenever he rides the jeep and the driver refuses his payment, he will get angry and insist that his payment be taken. I heard that he is not that poor. He looks like he is not that taken care of. Or was it because he is just stubborn to be taken care of by his relatives? If he is single or got a family of his own, I am not sure. How does it feel to live like him? I want to know. After the blessing of the seniors, he did not anymore take his seat but he went back where he was from, stayed standing on the aisle instead of sitting on the pew, and went straight out of the Cathedral after the final blessing. Since I was seated near the aisle, I was able to look at him closely. It was my first time to do so. I looked at his eyes. Our eyes met. I saw not the eyes of someone who has lost hope. I can tell that look of someone who has lost hope because I saw them before in the eyes of beggars, abandoned, and old people in the home for the aged. It was not that look that I saw in him. I saw his fierce and piercing eyes that looked back at me. As I go out of the Cathedral, I saw him approach a mother and child who seem familiar to him. He blessed both of them. I was stirred. Encountering the poor can be disturbing, I thought to myself. He might be thinking to himself that his life is near to the end that he chooses to praise God every day by attending daily Mass. I don’t know. I might only be imagining this. It’s as if I saw Christ in him. It’s as if this old man is living a life of a mystic. Content with how he lived his life and spending the rest of it thanking the Lord for his life.