If you pray your breviary while walking...

It had been another hot day with temperatures in the high 40s (deg C), that is over 110 F. When I returned to the house around 5 pm the chapel was a great place to go if one needed a visit to a sauna, so I chose to pray my breviary whilst walking the grounds of the church and adjoining school. It was (relatively) cool under the shade of the trees and I was able to stroll along concentrating on the prayers being recited. As such I was not paying too much attention to where I was placing my feet, but after all the ground is flat, there were only leaves and sticks on the ground until one word broke the serenity, "SNAKE!"

I nonchalantly looked around and didn't see anything but a large tree that I was passing, so I kept ambling and praying. Moments later the young boy who raised the alarm arrived with a small tin full of petrol which he then threw at the tree I had been standing next to while he was excitedly told me that he had seen a snake "a real big one" moving in the tree. I'd heard the "big snake" story before so was not expecting to much, but to my surprise when the serpent emerged she was rather large!.

Over a metre and a half (5 feet) long from head to tail and as fat as a grown man's arm and moving with the slow speed of one confident of their size. The Mass server (Festus) took a long solid piece of cut bamboo and keeping at a safe distance crushed the head of the infernal serpent much to the excitement of the gathering children from the catechism class. A few months ago after a spate of snake visits in our walled compound I blessed the area using the Roman ritual blessing against such pests, now it seems I may have to extend the scope. But most of all I will need to keep one eye on my breviary, and one on the road.