Everyone has heard of the church mouse. He's the creature that many people are as poor as. The church mouse may be poor in the material things of life, but he is rich in what is important. After listening to homily after homily, day in and day out, attending every devotional service imaginable and spending more time in church than a statue, the resident rodent of St. Pius X in Solon Springs, Wisconsin, was ready to face with resignation anything that could possibly happen. That is, until the church cat came upon the scene.

He was a nice enough cat, as cats went, black and white, with short, shiny fur. He looked a little bit like a four footed altar boy, but with very sharp teeth and a long wagging tail.

The mouse spent most of his time in church. He felt very safe and comfortable there. The only times he would go outside were following the Parish Funfest to gather any food left in the parking lot, and occasionally check out the back field and church yard, bringing the results of his forays to his nest in the Rectory garden.

The cat, (the children had named him "Amen"), also wandered around the parish grounds, only he was looking for mice, because that is what cats do. He, too, had a nest near the Rectory garden where he sometimes slept, but neither the cat nor the mouse was aware of their neighbor.

It was on last St. Patrick's Day, after the celebration to honor the great Irish holy man, that the cat and the mouse came whisker to whisker. The mouse, who loved corned beef and cabbage, headed to the parish hall after the last of the local Celts had aimed for home. The pickings were good, and with a sack full of enough goodies to last at least a week, he scurried back to his little nook inside the church.

And that's when Amen saw him.

And that's when Amen started to plan his traditional Easter meal.

Amen watched the mouse as he struggled to the church door with his heavy load. He would have to wait until some parishioner opened the door so he could slip inside. He was in luck. Vic, whose truck he recognized, drove up to the church and started to open the door, with the mouse close behind.

Amen was in no hurry; he had been well fed during the winter holidays when the parish office staff had been more than generous in sharing their treats with him. Besides, a mouse fattened up on corned beef and cabbage would taste much better.

It was getting late and the cat, tired after a day of sitting in the spring sunshine, ambled toward the church. As he approached his nightly nest, he noticed a few small pieces of cabbage near the garden and realized that was where the mouse lived. The mouse saw the cat watching him, but he wasn't upset. He believed in the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor, and was sure this applied to cats as well as other mice.

There were five more weeks until Easter, and that was of some concern to Amen. It being Lent, most of the adults in the rectory had given up snacks, and the pickings were a little slim. Around lunchtime, he began to worry.

The mouse, having finished the food he had appropriated from the St. Patrick's Day feast, also felt the effects of the fast and abstinence rules of the Church. But the mouse didn't mind. Spending so much time in church and listening to the sermons had given him an understanding and appreciation of the sacrifices of the parishioners, and he accepted his meager rations willingly and in the same spirit as the churchgoers.

This, however, did not make Amen happy. A skinny mouse would be harder to catch and wouldn't taste nearly as good. Something had to be done.

He began looking around the neighborhood for likely places to find or maybe just borrow those food items that would keep weight on a mouse and eventually wandered over to the Dairy Queen near the business section of town. The customers were a little surprised to see a cat pick up a fallen piece of bun from a bratwurst sandwich or a broken cone from someone's ice cream treat, since cats are not usually fond of other than a high protein diet. They called him "That crazy cat", but little did they know there was a method to his madness. As he made his way back and forth between the Dairy Queen and St. Pius Church, Amen began to lose poundage due to the constant travel, while the mouse became a happy, content, and rather full-figured little fellow.

Since he was taking so much time taking care of the mouse and watching him so closely, Amen also found himself listening to almost as many sermons as his intended feast. He especially liked the ones about loving thy neighbor. He found he really got great pleasure watching the smile of satisfaction on the mouse's face when he spied a new cache of tasty tidbits near his home, and experienced an inner glow each time the mouse dug into his meal. It was nice to be able to give to the needy.

Amen worried that if he became too friendly with the mouse, it might spoil his appetite for his planned Easter dinner. The only way to prevent that, it seemed, was to ignore the Sunday sermons. However, that proved difficult to do, mainly because they seemed to make a lot of sense. The Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount and the lives of the saints rang continuously in his furry ears even though he tried his best not to listen. In an attempt to keep his mind off the homilies, he watched the people in church, the pretty ladies and the clothes they wore. He watched the small children with their parents, the people in the choir, and kept his eye on the pudgy little mouse that would soon become his dinner.

Finally, the day of the Resurrection arrived. It was Easter Sunday and Amen was licking his lips. It was to be roast mouse for Easter dinner, a meal fit for a king, or at least for a cat.

But there were too many people around. It seemed like the whole world had come to church. He had grabbed the mouse just before they began to arrive and now he would have to wait to begin his feast until the services were over. It just didn't seem right, he thought, to be eating during mass.

He held the mouse tightly under his sharply clawed paw and waited for the parishioners to file out. It would only be an hour or so, if the good Father didn't get carried away with the homily, not too long to put off a good meal. Amen tried to ignore words here and there, but "Peace", "Brotherhood", "Love", "Forgiveness", "Compassion" and other equally disturbing concepts filtered into his half closed ears, triggering a response that the hungry Amen didn't exactly like. He tried not to let this holy talk disturb his appetite. The mouse was going to be delicious.

As the mass progressed with all its beauty and ceremony, the words of peace, love and brotherhood kept echoing in Amen's ears. As hard as he tried, they wouldn't go away. They weren't things a hungry cat should be thinking about before dinnertime.

Finally, the mass was almost over. The congregation joined hands and with fervent voices proclaiming the glory of God, sang The Lord's Prayer.

The priest, after intoning the Rite of Peace, turned to the St. Pius congregation and said, "Let us offer each other the sign of peace". Amen was caught up in the moment. His paw, clutching the mouse, released its grip and Amen gently offered it to the stunned mouse who gave it a quick shake and raced to a hiding place behind the baptismal font.

Amen left the church before the mass was over and wandered around the church grounds, hungry, but somehow feeling good inside. About an hour later as he passed the rectory, he saw the pastor come outside for a breath of fresh air after his Easter dinner. The good Father noticed the cat, and remembering the local stories about the feline with the strange appetite, tossed him a piece of the apple he was eating. Amen grabbed it and raced to the mouse's hiding place near the rectory, and carefully set the tasty morsel where it could be easily found. The mouse, still trying to figure out what had gone on that day, peered out at the apple. He remembered that he still had a bit of corned beef left in his stash, and when he went to get the apple, he took some of the Irish food out with him.

And so it was that the cat sat down with the mouse and they had their Easter feast together. It wasn't quite like the biblical lion lying down with the lamb, but they did eat in peace.

Later that evening, as the sun started to set, the mouse turned to Amen and said, "The peace of the Lord be with you". And Amen repeated the words he had heard in church that day, "And also with you".

The moral of the story is easy to discern. It may be that regardless of our differences, we can live in harmony with our neighbors if we remember the words that Amen heard on that Easter Sunday - Peace, Love, and Brotherhood.