A DARK IN THE LIGHTNESS

Do you want to bring the Catholic Church to its knees? Forget about Communism or Sam Harris or scandalmongers. The only thing you need to do is turn off the electricity. The windstorms yesterday downed lines and shut off power to every building on the grounds of Saint Clare except the rectory, the one place it wouldn’t really have mattered since, being a Luddite, all of my clocks are wind up anyway.

Since it is very dark early in the morning mass was cancelled, the school was closed and the office is crippled. The postal machine was down so no mailing anything and the hospital computers were down so I couldn’t find the Catholics there. Our doors lock electronically so I don’t often bother carrying a key. That was a mistake. Even our staplers are electric so we cannot even staple a piece of paper.

Long gone are the days when the highest technology employed in a church building was the architecture itself. That, and the pipe organ whose bellows were manned by rambunctious altar boys. How did we survive without microphones and lights? Having enough candles to play BINGO must have cost a fortune.

IN OTHER NEWS: (Sorry about the limited appeal of this post but these things were backing up!)

THE NEW G. K. CHESTERTON CLUB OF CLEVELAND NEEDS YOUR HELP! They have about 100 new potential members. For the next event they want to try to "piggy-back" off another free event somewhere (to try to attract the most people to come) then, simply meet afterwards. Please keep me informed if there are any events/concerts/lectures/etc that might work (at a Church or otherwise). Or, instead they are looking for a good highway accessible place (not too far East or West), that's free, big enough to hold 100 (or at least 40), (also ideally a place where drinking may occur) Any ideas?

MEN OF NORTHEAST OHIO! The Catholic Men’s fellowship of Northeast Ohio is sponsoring their annual conference on Saturday, February 9th at Akron Hoban High School to assist men on their spiritual journey. An important part of Catholic Men’s Fellowship is the opportunity to meet regularly with other men to assist each other to grow spiritually. I’ll be there to hear confessions along with many other priests from the diocese. For more information or to register go here.

CLEVELAND PRIEST TO BE INSTALLED AS THE FOURTH ARCHBISHOP OF THE ARCHDIOCESE FOR MILITARY SERVICE. This office serves about 1.3 million Catholics who are affiliated with the United States Armed Services throughout the world. For those of us not able to attend his installation at the National Shrine in Washington D.C., he will have a Mass of Thanksgiving here in Cleveland at the Cathedral of Saint John on Sunday, 3 February 2008 at 3:00 PM. A public reception will follow immediately after mass. You are invited!