A letter or a phone call comes in asking for confession help in six months. You look at your calendar. There is nothing there yet. So you pencil in some confession dates. The local Catholic radio station calls a little while 
later. They are looking for someone to give Scriptural reflections for an entire week. Still, there is not much on your calendar and besides it’s weeks and weeks away. There is plenty of time to write. Why not?
It turns out that the only weekend that the parish is able to do the confirmation retreat is the same exact weekend at which you are going to give a number of talks, hear confessions, Mass, and other services. Things are getting edgy but hey – that’s what you are ordained for right?
As the week approaches a local nursing home calls. Their priest is going away could you please fill in saying Masses there? Of course. How could we say no?
The week begins. Phone calls come in of people who need to have an appointment immediately. I am a com
plete push over. I say yes.
Gads! What is this written in my book? “Have taxes ready for your tax preparer!” A funeral that you are to attend comes up on Monday. How rude of that person to not check first and see if it was a good week. Arg! I forgot about the Vibrant Parish Life meeting.
Unfortunately when you started adding things to your calendar you had not yet written in the extra Lenten services the parish was having; extra confessions, two Stations of the Cross, Night Prayer . . . What moron made up this calendar anyway?
Things start slipping. Phone calls will just have to wait. Ask the deacon to preach for you this weekend. There just is not physically any extra time to do anything. I feel guilty for takin
g 15 minutes to blog. (Was I really going to start exercising in earnest this week?)
But the disaster of the week passes. It was great but tiring. I pressed the boys on retreat, “Think about the priesthood men! You have no idea how badly you are needed, wanted, and appreciated.” They nod and hopefully seriously consider it. The taxes made it in though late, we said Masses at the nursing home, the blog was posted, phone calls will begin again today, and I don’t have to write a homily until the weekend because I wrote them all last week for the radio spots.
Now about that mound on my desk.
(If you are local and interested you can hear the radio spots on AM 1060 from March 7th through the 13th. They are played in spots throughout the day.)
later. They are looking for someone to give Scriptural reflections for an entire week. Still, there is not much on your calendar and besides it’s weeks and weeks away. There is plenty of time to write. Why not?It turns out that the only weekend that the parish is able to do the confirmation retreat is the same exact weekend at which you are going to give a number of talks, hear confessions, Mass, and other services. Things are getting edgy but hey – that’s what you are ordained for right?
As the week approaches a local nursing home calls. Their priest is going away could you please fill in saying Masses there? Of course. How could we say no?
The week begins. Phone calls come in of people who need to have an appointment immediately. I am a com
plete push over. I say yes.Gads! What is this written in my book? “Have taxes ready for your tax preparer!” A funeral that you are to attend comes up on Monday. How rude of that person to not check first and see if it was a good week. Arg! I forgot about the Vibrant Parish Life meeting.
Unfortunately when you started adding things to your calendar you had not yet written in the extra Lenten services the parish was having; extra confessions, two Stations of the Cross, Night Prayer . . . What moron made up this calendar anyway?
Things start slipping. Phone calls will just have to wait. Ask the deacon to preach for you this weekend. There just is not physically any extra time to do anything. I feel guilty for takin
g 15 minutes to blog. (Was I really going to start exercising in earnest this week?)But the disaster of the week passes. It was great but tiring. I pressed the boys on retreat, “Think about the priesthood men! You have no idea how badly you are needed, wanted, and appreciated.” They nod and hopefully seriously consider it. The taxes made it in though late, we said Masses at the nursing home, the blog was posted, phone calls will begin again today, and I don’t have to write a homily until the weekend because I wrote them all last week for the radio spots.
Now about that mound on my desk.
(If you are local and interested you can hear the radio spots on AM 1060 from March 7th through the 13th. They are played in spots throughout the day.)
5 comments:
When we saw you at the Saturday vigil Mass handing out hymnals, we thought you looked a little rough around the edges just because of the youth retreat--little did we know.
Great reflection on Living Bread today. For readers not local, the reflections are also available for MP3 download.
Father, thank you for letting us see a little bit of the busy life of a pastor. We appreciate all that you do and wish that the Lord would bless you with Padre Pio's gift of bi-location.
You are like a modern-day John Vianney! God bless you for your unwavering commitment to all of those who seek your guide:0)
You could do what my pastor did. He accidentally (and I really do mean accidentally) put a major seminar that he had to give on his calander for the wrong date. They are two months from now. When he realized the error he didn't tell anybody and ended up with two days during Lent where he had no meetings and pleanty of time to do all that other stuff.
Father, you will no longer receive from me e-mail messages about trivial incidents in Barberton, or Timbuktu, or even the Vatican . . . . only serious, urgent messages from now on. Thank you for your gracious response to those past trivial messages.
bob kraus sr
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