After the big party welcoming the cat to Heaven, the two saints and Little Jo fell asleep on the steps of the Golden Staircase that goes down to Earth. The staircase became a pair of hands, the hands of God the Father. The big hands gently carried the three down to the Gates of Heaven and all Heaven followed them. No angel or saint wanted to miss any of the stories in the memory of the cat.
As the cat slept his eyes began to whirl and Heaven became filled with an excited buzz. As the cat, St. Dominic, and St Francis began a dream caught in joy, Heaven rolled into a ball and bounced into the dream just as it started.
In the cat’s memory, the cat was living at St. Joseph’s house in Nazareth. No one else seemed to be home. The cat was nervously meowing and pacing back and forth. The cat was sad because Mary and Joseph had left on a journey and it had been a long time since they were back. There was water and some food laid out, so someone had been taking care of the cat, but the cat missed Mary and Joseph and wanted them back home.
The cat was also annoyed because it was sure it had missed the big event. For months after finding Mary and then Joseph, the cat had been involved in everything they did. The cat was there the day they were married. The cat moved with Mary into Joseph’s house. The cat watched Mary becoming larger carrying her special child, and then just as the time for the child’s birth was close, Mary and Joseph left town.
The cat was not happy when that happened. The cat knew that something big was going on with Mary and Joseph. It didn’t seem fair that after watching out for both of them, the cat was going to be denied the right to be at the birth of the baby. The cat, who had an eye for angels, was used to angels hanging out at Joseph’s, but now there were no angels anywhere around the house. At night the cat watched angels flying overhead going in the same direction Mary and Joseph went. Then one night the cat watched as a bright star seemed to explode and appear in the sky. Then the cat knew it was missing all the fun.
For days nothing happened. Then gradually angels began to return. There were angels on the roof and angels in the clouds, so the cat knew Mary and Joseph were probably going to be back soon. The cat climbed onto a high wall, watched the road, and waited hoping to see the figures of a donkey and a man and a woman returning.
It was on one of these days on the roof when the cat first thought of Mary and Joseph as his family. Cats didn’t make commitments easily. This cat had already lived in different places with different people and had never really felt at home before. On the roof on that warm day, the cat felt sad and concerned for Mary and Joseph and for the baby it didn’t yet know. What if something bad had happened to them. The cat realized it felt lonely for the family it loved. Now the cat knew it had a home and that he had found his true family.
Finally, a long week later, the cat saw the donkey at a distance. It jumped off the roof and ran to the distance figures. It was meowing loudly and both Mary and Joseph laughed when they saw the cat flying towards them. “Here’s someone who missed us,” Joseph said.
“And here is someone that our little cat friend needs to meet,” said Mary. She got off the donkey and held out a bundle of cloth. As she removed the cloth, she showed the cat that this bundle was her baby boy. The cat’s heart almost exploded because the baby was the most beautiful thing it had ever seen. “Jesus, meet Little Jo, our cat.” When Mary said “our cat”, the heart of the little animal almost exploded again. Then when the baby looked up smiling at the cat and reached out to touch Little Jo, the cat purred and purred.
Then Joseph said, “Here is someone else we want you to meet. I’m sure you’ll be good friends.” At this the cat saw running down the road another animal. The animal was barking. The happiness in the cat’s heart disappeared as it said, “Oh mo, mot a mog.”