By Effie Caldarola | Catholic News Service

It was near the end of a long East Coast visit, a road trip that took us to visit a priest friend at the University of Notre Dame, the sights at Niagara Falls and an Italian cousin who was visiting my husband's extended family.

We had driven hundreds of miles, but this day we were merely out doing errands, picking up household necessities for a daughter moving into a new apartment.

The crash came, like they all do, suddenly. We must have been in the lady's blind spot, the lady who suddenly threw on her blinker and turned directly into our path. Taking evasive action, my husband swung the car dramatically to the right.

Like a movie car chase, we bumped roughly over a curb and came to an abrupt stop. Unlike a movie, we did not slam the car into reverse and speed off merrily down the street. Two tires were collapsed and fluid leaked ominously. 

The other driver was irritatingly nonchalant. I don't think she realized that our car was close to being totaled from this misadventure.    

When events like this happen, we often wonder, where was God in all this? Of course, we were very grateful that we and the other driver and her passenger walked away safely.

But still, I recalled that at the beginning of our road trip, I had taken a little vial of holy water that I had obtained on a recent trip to Ireland and blessed our car with it. The water came from the site at Knock where an apparition of Mary was said to have occurred in the 19th century as the country was recovering from famine.

I examined my motivations for this act of private devotion. I love the sacramentals of our faith -- the symbols that the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines as "sacred signs that ... signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the church."

I have a lively Catholic imagination, and love the bells and whistles -- the medals, pilgrimages, the candles lit in dusky churches, the relics, the holy water. If it's not your cup of tea, that's OK. But for me, it's a source of solace and closeness to the sacred.

The important thing is to remind myself that these sacramentals open my heart to God and are not superstitious assurances that I am somehow magically protected from the world's threats.

In his new book, "Barking to the Choir," Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, who has made a career out of helping ex-gang members reclaim their lives, offered a comment I have meditated over.

"God does not protect (us) from anything," Father Boyle said, "but he sustains (us) through everything."

Father Boyle was remembering how, during the World Trade Center bombings, many people were killed in the towers but many, for reasons as mundane as oversleeping or stopping to buy doughnuts on the way to work, were spared death. Did God somehow "protect" some people? No, God's grace was operating with all those who died and with those who lived. How this works is part of the mystery of our God.

We have a natural inclination to ask God to protect us. In tight situations, I say the Hail Mary like a mantra. I believe, if anything, God offers us protection from the evil one, the very real presence of wickedness that pursues us. 

But we're all going to suffer and we're all going to die. We don't ask to be spared this, just as Jesus was not spared, but we ask to trust the will of God who sustains us.