For my priests, these wonderful men of faith, who help me draw closer to God in so many ways. Thank you and I love you!
1 Thessalonians 1:2-4
We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you;
It was one of those moments that really make you understand the phrase, “Fear of the Lord.”
Morning Mass. I usually sit in the center, second row, in the middle of the row. Not that I sit in the same place all the time – no, no, then I would be Catholic. Oh. Wait. Hmm. Maybe that *is* me…. But this morning someone was in my “usual” spot, and I didn’t want to try to hop over her to my second or third choice seats, so I sat at the end, which is kind of a 5th choice location. (Does anyone else have tertiary-level preferences? Or am I just an odd duck? This is really odd, because I’m not this picky for Saturday or Sunday Mass, or any Mass held in the church as opposed to the day chapel. Although, when I arrive late, my preferred spot in the day chapel is usually under the piano or behind some potted plant. 🙂 )
For some weird reason, there weren’t as many people as usual today, so what happened was I was one of the closest people to the gifts. Oooh, boy. I usually try to avoid that, because I haven’t been explicitly invited to touch them by the priests and I live in fear of them smacking me for doing something wrong. So, when the time came and no one had sat down any closer than I, I went up with another girl and presented the wine to Fr. Steve. In that moment, I was scared, and I’m sure my face turned bright red, and I kept thinking, “Wow! *This* is going to be turned into His blood! And, *I* am carrying it!” (I’m such a dork, right?) I was so happy that it was Fr. Steve, since I don’t think he would want to smack me maybe as much as one of the others, if I messed up.
Happily, he said, “Thank you,” instead of banishing me from the chapel. Praise God! 🙂 I’m probably too scared to do that too often, but I’m glad I got to do it, at least once.
Okay, last year before Lent:
Fr. John’s talking to our RCIA class. He is giving us examples of things that we could give up (or take on) for Lent. I hear something like, “Some of you might give up their daily Starbucks or Caribou or whatever it is -”
*and he’s looking in MY direction* Now, wait a minute!! He can’t possibly *know* that I have, like, 8 coffee cards in my wallet. No way. He doesn’t mean to imply that *I* should give up coffee and put that money towards a good use. He must mean someone else. Certainly, God wouldn’t want *me* to give up coffee. I need that caffeine!
The following week – I’m sitting somewhere slightly different in the room.
He does it again!! Aaah! Quit looking at me when you mention coffee. I don’t wanna give up my coffee. Quit picking on my coffee! *internal tantrum occurs*
I get a thought: maybe God wants me to give up coffee for Lent.
Drat! And here I wanted to give up something else, like perhaps solid food. That would be fine. I could do that.
So, I did what he said and went home and prayed about it, and…. *sigh*… gave up coffee for Lent. It actually went quite well. Must be grace, because it certainly wasn’t me. I even managed to resist when people in the store came up to me with nice, fresh, free samples of coffee.
This year:
I have issues with cooking. I have issues with food. I have issues with grocery stores. I was nearly hyperventilating at Kroger the other day, just thinking about having to stick stuff in the cart. I come up with a brilliant idea: on the days that no one signs up to come over, I’ll just fast…. Brilliant, eh? True, I’d probably not really end up doing that, because I realize it’s a cop-out, but in the meantime — it’s a fairly attractive thought.
Here’s the stupidity (or well, more stupidity): I mention this “great” idea to a friend. Said friend (ugh!) knows me too well. 🙂 She states, “No, no, no – in your case, fasting would be less penitential than eating alone!!!”
Drat again! Seriously, have you been talking to my eating disorder specialist? Didn’t she tell you that we like to be tricky?!? I wasn’t kidding that this will be a hard penance for me, and I’ll have to work against myself so that I don’t sneak it into being something unhealthy, and really against what I want it to be.
Since Kasia brought up her bad dream, I figured that I might as well post about the one that I had last week, you know, to keep her company. 🙂
Here I was at church, and someone comes up to me and says:
“Fr. J.J. has left.”
“What do you mean he’s left?!?”
“Well, you did know that he was only a temporary pastor, didn’t you?”
“What?!? No! No one told me that! Aaaah!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find you another one.”
“No! Not again!”
Apparently, in my head, I’m thinking that pastors come with a 6 month term….
Other things that shouldn’t be said to parishioners:
“Fr. Stanley has gone to a better place.”
“WHAT?!?!? He died?!?!?!?”
“No, no — he’s on vacation.”
Yeah, that last one, wasn’t a dream — it was actually said that way. No wonder I’m a little Mendeled.
Okay, so yesterday I was late getting out the door, later still after clearing the snow off the car, and slightly delayed due to slower (although not horrible) traffic. End result? I was about 4 minutes late for Mass.
This means that I came in as the Gospel was being proclaimed. What?!? I wasn’t that late! He must have known that I was going to be late and got everyone to agree to skip the first reading and started with the responsorial psalm. Seriously. Okay, okay. He wouldn’t do that, but I thought I was doing pretty good, here to find out I missed almost half of Mass. Maybe it just took me 10 minutes to walk from the parking lot to the chapel?
Anyway, I had the vague impression that there was something that I had wanted to say to Fr. John after Mass, but I could not remember what it was. Sometimes I have a horrible memory, so during Benediction, I just kept looking at the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, trying to remember if there was something that I should be remembering.
Ah ha! (Thank You!) I was going to tell Fr. John that yesterday was my one year of coming into the church (building) and going up to an usher after Mass and asking, “How do you join?”
So, I stand outside the sacristy after Mass, ready to pounce, along with the other parishioners who have questions for him. As incoherent as I often am in e-mails and blogs, I am usually far more incoherent in person, speaking. So, I can totally understand if he thinks I’m a bubblehead. That and I laugh a lot — so much that one of my other priests has said, “You are a giggly little pumpkin. Come, join us, giggle over here.”
I say something like, “Hi! It’s my one year coming into the church — coming through the door! Thank you for scaring me back!” And he replied, “That’s what I do!”
Hahahahahahhahahahaha!
One of these days, when I get more time (does that ever really happen?), I should post my “conversion story,” so you can get all the inside-joke references. 🙂
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 