Furthermore…

Yesterday a deacon who has been assisting at our parish said his first Mass, after having been ordained the day before. It was especially noteworthy for us because this man had come to the United States from Poland only a few years previously to pursue his vocation.  Many priests, both American and Polish, con celebrated the Mass with him.  His Mom and some other relatives came here from Poland to be present at these important milestones in his life.  The Mass was will attended, and an attractive fourteen page program was distributed to serve as a  worship aid and to be saved as a souvenir.  Afterwards, a luncheon was provided in the church hall, and our new priest gave a special new priest’s blessing to all who stepped forward.

What to look for in a good preacher?  Perhaps a sincere ability to communicate in a way that reaches the hearts of  people is the single most critical element.  Of course, a  strong clear voice and a topic of real interest are certainly necessary requirements,  not always met,  sad to say.  And clarity of thought, down to earth good sense, stirring conviction, fascinating stories, or love of the faith, just to mention a few good ingredients, play into the judgment.

Our parish Faith Enrichment program brings a small group of folks together once a week to delve into the messages  contained in the previous Sunday Readings. We read some commentaries about the readings in the Catholic press, and share what the readings have meant to us, what we derived from them, and what aspects of them might not have come across with total clarity.  I’ve come to realize that merely hearing the readings once at Mass does not usually fully bring out for me all that is contained in or is suggested by them. Re-reading them within our group and sharing our reactions to them actually puts them into the context of our everyday lives, as the people at the meetings in an  outspoken manner relate to such concerns as marriage, parenting, today’s financial struggles and the like.  It is always delightful to catch a glimpse of the many and varied ways the different people see a single issue.

[I am reproducing this which was posted by

Alicia on the Multiply Catholic Friends group site.]

“Is there poetry in the sacrament of confession?

I remember the famous three words of the world’s celebrated mountaineer, Mallory who was at one time many years back asked why he was climbing Mount Everest. He simply retorted: “Because it’s there.”

So then, yes there is poetry in an act of contrition at least, one prosaic but profoundly childlike because it is there.

Now imagine if you will, sitting in the front pew of this chapel remembering what it was like in the days of yore when the nuns with the eyes on the back of their veils that see through the penitent’s soul sifting through the petrified young mind for oversight in the list of sins commited leave you wanting to bolt out of heaven’s door…and then, here you are all grown, recalling with fervor the prayer once commited to memory that now go by way of aging…

It does not matter really if the poetry of it does not rhyme because now you know wisdom comes absolutely with the fear of the Lord. The same fear  that instills reverence for the perfect order of creation…And so I penned this poem that reasons with my humanity and that seeks the peace of that one magnificient Word…

I scoop out the gray mass of words

from the cerebral cortex

where the memory of it

flows red with my blood

and begin to shape the unspoken

into rosaries of transformations

with the cross of brown and wine

that tastes sweet with the bread of life

The crystallized tears pour like hailstorms

in verses with the same words that first

came out of my hand

the same hand that had the lifeless words

filing into single entities

with my knees bending to the gaping floor

and my other hand genuflecting.

The words marched to waiting candles

over melted candles in iron sculpture

I slipped a folded bill in the slot meant for donations

where the words waited to light my fingers

I donated some of them too

knowing there’s an ear someone left inside

an ear that can write better than I can or better than I need to.

I took the rest of the formless and unspoken words

leaving the lighted candles to pray for themselves

and sat down in the oak comfort of the past beyond this door

taking care the words do not know

that I am slowly turning them over to the priest

who waits in the confessional box.”

aliceinthepoetsheartland

Today at our 5th Grade Catachesis Class my teaching partner began to tellthe children that this Christmas season we might, as a class project,  put on a little skit.  I chimed in with  the news that we will probably need someone to dress up as a sheep.  All the boys, who up to this point were totally disinterested, eagerly raised their hands to volunteer!

Our church has Confessions Saturday mornings after Mass. Usually I sit in my pew and read a little bit and pray before I get up and go to get into the Confession line, so there will be a few people ahead of me in line.  Actually, I often notice that a few people start queuing up by heading to the Confession line directly from receiving Holy Communion instead of returning to their places in the pews. But this morning, by some fluke, after sitting for some moments after Mass ended, I went over by the confessional and surprisingly, there was no line. A physician friend of mine was standing nearby, talking on his cellphone. I took my place where the line always forms.  My doctor friend came over and got behind me, so I said “You go first. You were here already.”  But no, he chose to remain behind me.

After a few minutes the priest came along and entered the confessional, turned on the light and settled down.  My friend nudged me to go ahead and get started.  I went over, stepped in, and asked Father if he was ready. He said he was, so I sat right down to begin, but no, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed that I had left the confessional door open,  being thrown off routine by being first in line and stopping to ask if all was in readiness.  Father kindly told me to close the door.

Then I couldn’t remember all the things I had decided to confess, and began to hem and haw, saying that there was something else but I couldn’t remember it.  Amused, he absolved me anyway.

My age must be catching up with me. It reminds me of the joke that goes “Do you ever think of the  ‘Here After’?”  “Yes, I often enter a room for some reason, but then have to stop and ask myself  “What am I here after?!”

I heard a presentation* on Catholic radio by a priest who had been pretty much a ‘wild child’ most of his younger years and then came to a powerful conversion experience. I tuned into the program a little late, but what I heard was, to me,  rollicking funny. In particular Father told of a number of encounters with little gatherings of  ‘Filipino women’ who always seemed to be praying the Rosary in the church where he was finding salvation.  They would brusquely tell him such things as that he would make a good priest – at a point in his life when he didn’t yet know exactly what being a priest might mean. Or they would tell him things about how to practice his Catholicism well, things that meant almost nothing to him.

I had such a good time laughing as I listened to his story that I immediately ordered a copy from the radio network, thinking I would share it with some of the many good-natured ‘Filipino women’ I know at my parish.

But on listening to the entire program after I received my copy in the mail I decided that the early part which I had missed was such strong stuff that I’d never pass it along to my pious Filipina friends.   I suspect that they would be so taken aback by the lurid details of the wild life he led before his conversion that they’d totally miss the humor in it and, beyond that, they’d see me as a purveyor of dirty junk besmirching, to a degree, their own and their country’s exceptional Catholic piety. They’ll have to find it somehow themselves.

*Putting on the Mind of Christ #243, air date November 26, 2006. Fr. Donald Calloway: Conversion Story.  Ave Maria Radio. 79min, 50sec. CD-713.

Pretty soon I and another catechist will be trying to teach rudiments of Catholicism to 5th graders who will assemble after Sunday Mass. We have been provided with hefty books full of course material and advice on how to proceed. But the book is a product of the ‘visual literacy’ generation, having all sorts of things scrambled together  on pages crammed with splashy colors and antic photographs and drawings. I’m sure we’ll manage fairly well; my partner has some allied experience at another parish to draw upon.

But I have a few objectives I want to achieve with the kids during our year together. I want to lead them somehow to improving their prayer lives. I’m going to ask them to find existing prayers for helping with their studying and learning, andyhe  other things important in their lives, such as more intentionally loving their parents and the other people in their lives. And I want to encourage each of them toward picking out a ‘life verse’ of their very own.  If they already have done so, all the better.  Furthermore…  I want to interest them, to a degree greater than is at present the case with them, in what takes place during the Mass.  There’s a lot about the Mass in the splashy book,  so this should be a done deal .

On my way home from church I came to a corner with a flimsy sign asking GOT LOVE? in big letters. Then underneath it gave a singles website.  Seemed like a strange vision, coming from church. I thought: Well, I’ve got God’s love, more or less. But that’s not in their ballpark. Then I thought Well, I’ve got something akin to love for a certain lady I admire from a distance.  Again, not their idea of love.

An old Army buddy did a lot of dating out of single clubs, so I have a little bit of an idea of how that stuff goes.  ‘Love’ doesn’t seem like the right word. Maybe ’struggle’ is closer.   Or ‘hope’.   But I suppose a certain amount of it turns out as love.

Yesterday I went to a nearby parish to attend the dedication of a statue shipped here to Florida from the Philippines honoring Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, under another title, Our Lady of Antipolo. Rosary, outdoor procession, and Mass made up the service, which was well attended, including a fine Philippine-American presence. A 125-year old image of this representation of Mary may be seen at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. D.C., which is an exact reproduction of the original brought to the Philippines from Mexico in the year 1626. The statue I saw yesterday at St. Maximillian Kolbe Parish in Port Charlotte is distinguished from the original and the one in Washington by being of a uniform goldtone finish, not in multicolored garb as are the others, such as the one shown.