Furthermore…

One kid to other as they check out the schedule for altar servers:

“It can’t a coincidence that Holly and Rudolph are scheduled on Christmas?”

One of the Catholic shows I listen to regularly is actually only the audio track from a TV show. At the end of the show the priest who is the host always recommennds contacting the ministry by using the web site shown on the screen. I wonder if he knows that some people are only listening, not viewing.

The episode that was replayed this morning was an interview with a priest who expressed some reservations about the trend among certain Catholics to ignore or minimize that the Mass is primarily a sacrifice, not a reenactment of the Passover meal, an expression of community, or a session of great liturgy. Surely he made good points, but can’t we do without all the bickering?

Seems like there are too many factions, criticisms, distinctions and cavils abroad within our Church. Can’t we all get along? The academics will slug it out eventually.

Speaker at meeting of secularists:

“If everyone buys into the separation of church and state, we have plans for the separation of church and life!”

Last Sunday’s 1st Reading was from Ezekiel (Ez34:11~17), and what struck me was that he was railing against the corruption among the leaders or Israel 500 years before Christ, so that Jesus’ exasperation with the Scribes and Pharisees was not a reaction to something that was new on the scene among the chosen People in Jesus’ lifetime, but evidently was a manifestation of the “same old same old,” business as usual. When I mentioned ths to the other members of the group, they didn’t seem to consider it particularly noteworthy. I guess I was the only one who assumed that Jesus was taking arms against a problem new on the scene. On reflection, I guess I was already well aware of the long trail of clay feet through the Old Testament.

Kid to Mom, about corpulent priest:

“Wow, he must eat a lot of Daily Bread!”

My father told how ‘in his day’ musicians in some bands were not allowed by their leader to tap their feet to keep time, I guess because it was unseemly or amateurish, showed lack of discipline, or dispelled the illusion of the band being a well tempered unit.

Now, when circumstances force me to listen to recordings of young singers, I often notice that they interject, or fail to exclude, little gasping sounds like ‘uhhh’ at the end of each line, which to me conveys a kind of untrammeled sensuality escaping through the veil of controlled performance. I notice this even from ‘Christian’ singers, who shouldn’t, I would think, be promoting untrammeled sensuality.

I can only imagine some young aspirant to musical acceptance auditioning before a cigar-chomping executive, only to be told “You don’t have the gasping down, kid. Get back to gasping school, and see me again in a couple of months. Gasping is big in this business!”

Preacher from pulpit:

“We will all give thanks to God this week, not to the Indians for their corn, as children are being taught in school that the Pilgrims did!”

Over the weekend I attended a retreat for men sponsored by a neighboring parish. Its content was based on the scriptural account of the two men to whom the resurected Jesus appeared on their way along the road out of Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Many talks were given by the retreat leaders using their life experience to show how they had progressed in their love of God in terms of: knowing oneself, the Word of God, the ‘masks’ we all wear, the sacraments, prayer, the healing of memories, family and friends, trust, and service. There is a parallel retreat given for women, but I don’t know to what extent it overlaps the mens’.

The thing that struck me most about the retreat was the sincerity, both of the leaders and the participants. It was salutary to hear spiritual topics addressed in normal voices on an everyday level, as compared to the oratorical tone and ‘churchy’ vocabulary used by most preachers. Another strong positive was that we were fortunate in having a professional musician/singer among the attendees, and he stepped in as a fine replacement for the faltering CD player which wouldn’t play the same songs that the leaders specified.

At our weekly meetings to discuss the Sunday Readings, we have had a number of parables to consider lately. The members of our group often speculate about what kind of circumstances or mentalities might have gone into the development of the situation portrayed in the parables, but how much speculation about surrounding circumstances is appropriate to taking the message conveyed by a parable to heart? I always assume that Christ’s parables were not accounts of actual happenings to be analyzed after the fashion of a law court, but rather ‘made up’ stories intended to make a point about how we are to live. So, it doesn’t matter what was in the mind of the other brother in the Prodigal Son parable, or whether the dishonest steward wasn’t so bad if he was using his ill gotten gains to feed the homeless.

Pupil in class, answering question:

“Names of angels? I can think of four: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Behold, an angel.”