It’s not often that you stumble on a journalist of deep faith, writing about that faith honestly and forthrightly in the secular media.

But this comes to us from Tracy Grant, the Weekend editor of the Washington Post — a heartfelt meditation on making a deal with God:

I’ve started hanging out at the Cathedral of St. Matthew in downtown DC. It’s a great old church, with gilt statues, deeply-hued mosaics and marble — oh the marble. It’s all green and gold and black and white and it all has the look of having been polished by the hand of God.

St. Matt’s also has these private alcoves — prayer nooks and crannies that modern churches lack. You can duck into the Chapel of St. Anthony of Padua or one devoted to Mary. And of course, there are those little stations (10 to be exact) where you can light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. The suggested candle donation is 75 cents, but the boxes always seem to be crammed with dollar bills. If you come to St. Matthew’s to light a candle, you’re probably in a “That’s okay, God, you can keep the change” frame of mind.

There’s also great people-watching. Sometimes, like for the 12:10 daily Mass, there’s a crowd of a hundred or more people. Sometimes, when I just poke my head in to kneel and say a few decades of the rosary, there might just be a handful of us. Very rarely am I the only one there. I’m not sure who I expected to show up at St. Matthew’s during the business day. But there’s no one type. There are homeless people, perhaps just getting out of the heat or cold. There are Catholic tourists, perhaps wanting to see where the Kennedy funeral was. (Don’t ask me how I know they are Catholic tourists; suffice to say that as after being Catholic for 43 years, I can spot another one from 20 pews away.) There are old men and pregnant women.

There are immigrants in blue collars and professionals in white ones. Some, no doubt, are regulars. Others are there for reasons they can’t quite fathom. They are there because of a pull that is as primal as anything they can imagine.

Put me in that category.

I found myself making the four-block pilgrimage from my office to the cathedral without really knowing where my feet were taking me. When I got there, I almost blindly climbed the 15 steps, pulled open the heavy brass door, dipped a finger in the holy-water font, slipped a dollar in the donation box and lit one of the candles that shimmer in the glazed, garnet holders. A loosely choreographed dance of desperation.

I was there to cut a deal — one that, no doubt, would make any sports general manager grimace. But by the time I found myself in that cathedral on a sweltering summer day, I knew what I wanted. I also knew that I would trade away just about anything to get it. What promise would you make to save the most precious person in your life?

I found myself pondering all sorts of ephemeral promises I could make to God: I would be a better person. I’d be less judgmental. I’d be more patient. But how do you gauge if you’re really keeping that kind of promise? And when you’re cutting this kind of deal with God, you don’t want there to be ambiguity in the contract. Then amid tears and rosary beads, it came to me. I could come here, every day, if even for a few minutes. I could light a candle. I could say thank you or help me or damn you. Or I could just go to people-watch. God would know I was keeping the deal. I would know I was keeping the deal.

Thy will be done.

How many thousands of times had I uttered those words in my lifetime before I really understood them? If you say them and mean them, then you keep the deal even when His will and yours have nothing in common. And so more than year after I started, I still come, not every day but often. I come even though the prayers that originally drew me here have been answered in a way that shattered my life. I come because keeping the deal isn’t just about saving the life of the person most precious to you. It’s also about finding a path that helps you go on without him. It’s about knowing that God always hears our prayers and always answers them and that the real life journey of faith is discovering the meaning in His answers.

There’s more, so read on and enjoy sharing the journey.